New figures show Peterborough City Council spent more than £340,000 on 15 staff redundancies

Hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent making staff redundant last year by Peterborough City Council, according to new figures.

The data shows the council spent £344,000 to make 15 staff members redundant in the year to March 2023.

Each package had an average cost of £23,000.

A year earlier the council had spent £293,000 to make 23 staff redundant.

However its bill for redundancies in the year to 2020 came in at £2,554,000.

The figures have been released by the Department for Levelling Up and Communities.

They also show that more than £185 million was spent on staff redundancies by councils across England, the lowest annual amount in nine years.

Last year just over £214 million was paid out to departing employees.

The number of staff taking redundancy also hit the lowest point since 2014, with over 7,800 exit packages agreed, at an average cost of £23,000. This was a slight increase on last year, when the figure was £22,000.

The figures have triggered a warning from the Local Government Association which is concerned that local authority workforces are shrink yet councils are facing an increasing demand for services.

It has prompted a call for a rethink of Government funding in order to reduce the pressure on local authority budgets.

Cllr Pete Marland, chair of the LGA's Resources Board, said: "Despite increasing demand for services, local authorities also face challenges in getting the right people into the right roles, such as in children’s services, adult social care and planning.

"Our own workforce survey shows 94 per cent said they were experiencing recruitment and retention difficulties."

He added: "Only long-term, consistent funding from central government will be enough to meet inflationary pressures and the rising costs of the National Living Wage, on top of increasing energy and other costs, if we are to avoid more redundancies and prevent exacerbating an already acute capacity crisis in some areas."

The figures also show nationally there were 325 senior employees made redundant last year, an increase of 70 on the year ending 2022.

Together they received a total of £28 million, at an average of £85,000 each.