CITY of York Council has warned that it may need to make more staff redundant - as it emerged that it spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on laying off employees in the last year.

New figures from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities showed that the authority made 20 people redundant in 2021-22 at an average cost of £19,308 per person.

The council paid a total of £386,167 in exit packages – up from £66,323 in 2020-21.

But this was still way below the £726,102 paid out in 2019-20, before the coronavirus pandemic.

The amount was also 75 per cent less than in 2014-15 – when it let go of 129 employees at a total cost of £1.6 million – despite exit payments typically being higher.

A council spokesperson said the authority paid redundancy in line with employment procedures.

"It is also essential to note that redundancy payments deliver significant ongoing savings and each payment is subject to a business case that helps demonstrate the ongoing savings,"they said.

“The council may need to look at further redundancies in the future due to financial pressures, however, no decisions have been made yet.”

The Local Government Association said councils across the country had been forced to reduce their workforce sizes due to budget cuts, despite dramatic increases in the volume and range of services provided

Across England, the total amount spent on exit payments fell for the fifth-successive year, from £250 million in 2020-21 to £210 million last year, but more staff were laid off than the year before, 9,744 compared to 9,454.

Andrew Western, chairman of the LGA's resources board, said councils had made layoffs in order to manage their budgets and avoid further pressure on taxpayers.

"Without funding from the Government to meet the pressure of an accelerating National Living Wage on top of soaring energy and other costs, more redundancies are likely, exacerbating the capacity crisis that is already acute in some areas and impacting the delivery of services to the public," he added.

The data also shows the average exit payment across England fell from £27,000 to £22,000 in the year to March.

Ian Miller, honorary secretary of the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, said this showed there was no need for the exit-payment cap briefly introduced by the Government in 2020.

The cap, which meant public sector bodies' redundancy packages could not top £95,000, was brought in in November 2020, before being scrapped three months later.

Across England, some 255 senior employees were laid off last year, accounting for a total payment of more than £20 million at an average of £85,000 each.

The 9,490 other staff made redundant received an average of £20,000 each in comparison.