240 jobs to go at Hull Council: statement

"Central government have taken £90 million from the Hull City Council budget over the last five years and this continues until 2014. We have plans to save £5.7 million per year until 2014.

"If we don't make this saving through back office functions, we would have to make redundancies to our front line services.

"The previous administration announced savings of £3 million in business support and did not have a plan. By upgrading IT systems and removing many paper-based processes, we are improving the efficiency of the organisation and minimising the effect to the public.

As 75p in every pound is spent on staffing, this will lead to the loss of 171 posts. The council is committed to minimising compulsory redundancies by removing vacancies, using redeployment and voluntary redundancy."