THE number of jobs at Worcester City Council have been slashed a staggering 43 per cent since 2009 - with around £9 million being shed from the yearly wage bill.

Your Worcester News can reveal how as recently as five years ago the authority employed around 550 people.

But after steady year-on-year declines today's full-time equivalent is around 310.

Data on the drop also shows significant yearly 'underspends' on staffing of between £150,000 and £550,000 since the 2008/09 financial year, largely due to staff turnover.

The wage bill has declined from £18 million to around £9 million, a record low.

Fresh questions are being asked about the council's future, with a former leader saying he fears it becoming "unsustainable" if the shrinking carries on.

A significant portion of the in-house job reductions are down to the drive to share certain functions between other authorities in recent years or commission them to other providers, like Worcestershire Regulatory Services,

As your Worcester News first revealed in December, the Conservative leadership wants to outsource most of the cleaner and greener function by 2017, with 120 jobs being handed to the private sector.

Councillor Adrian Gregson, opposition Labour group leader, said: "The stated aim of the Conservatives is to try and hive off as many services as possible.

"There is an issue about when we are going to reach a tipping point where the council becomes an unsustainable operation.

"I am concerned about that prospect because we know they want to privatise more jobs.

"When we lose these services keeping that autonomy, control and monitoring over them becomes difficult."

But Conservative Councillor Simon Geraghty, city council leader, has rejected the criticism.

"What Labour want to do is turn the clock back, they are forgetting what has been going on nationally ever since Tony Blair's Government," he said.

"We are less focused on the distinction of who provides services and more interested in value for money, the quality of the services on offer and holding those providers to account.

"Labour want to turn back the tide of history, we're very clear on what we want to do over the next five years and that is to focus on investment into the city."

The cleaner and greener handover includes bin collections, parks maintenance and street sweeping, and is aimed at saving around £500,000 a year, with one or more private sector operators being sought after to take it over.

The Tory administration approved its new £10.1 million 2015/16 budget earlier this month.