There are no plans for mass staff redundancies at Shropshire Council, its leader vowed today.

A report by the Audit Commission and Local Government Association said this week further job losses were ‘inevitable’ among the 1.6 million people who work for England’s 353 councils.

But council boss Keith Barrow said today: “We have no plans in Shropshire to make any large-scale redundancies.”

He added: “Indeed we have been praised by the Government for the way we are transforming our services to better meet the needs of our residents.

Shropshire Council employs 6,500 people.

Mr Barrow said: “It is not in the public interest to make mass redundancies, because it costs the council money and damages the local economy, so we are doing everything possible to avoid making people redundant.”

He said the council was trying to make savings by sharing resources with other organisations or providing them in a different way.

A spokesman for Telford & Wrekin Council, which has a non-school workforce of 3,100, said the authority had made 14 compulsory redundancies since April last year and cut the number of senior managers by half.

“We have worked very closely with trade unions to minimise compulsory redundancies,” the spokesman added.

“We recognise the impact that we have, as a large employer, on our local economy and during the same period have increased the number of apprentices by 20.”

The report said the local authority workforce nationally – not including teachers, firefighters or police – peaked at the equivalent of one million full-time posts in 2007 but has since fallen to 932,800 by the middle of this year.

The overall council pay bill rose by 22 per cent from 2004/05 to 2009/10, but has since fallen to around £30 billion and is set to fall further, said the report.

Audit Commission chairman Michael O’Higgins said: “Each council must find its own way of cutting costs tailored to local needs, local circumstances and its own workforce.”