MORE than 1,000 staff have left Lancashire County Council since April 2010, bosses have confirmed.

A total of 1,111 out of 24,000 workers have accepted the offer of voluntary redundancy, costing £28million in payoffs, as the council looks to make £180million spending cuts.

The figures, confirmed by council leader Geoff Driver, suggest job losses at County Hall were on a smaller scale than some other local authorities.

All staff were offered the chance to take voluntary redundancy, and 2,500 put in a request.

A further 56 compulsory job losses will have been made by the end of the year, despite bosses’ pledges to avoid forced sackings.

Council leader Geoff Driver insisted they resulted from restructures rather than the council’s spending cuts programme.

He said: “Some are still going through the process, but these will be the bulk of them.

“We set out to achieve this without forced redundancies, and we have done that.”

Labour group leader Jennifer Mein warned that services would suffer as a result of the reduction in headcount.

Of the voluntary departures, 666 were agreed in 2010/11, with a further 445 this financial year.

The council has recently signed a multimillion pound contract with BT to outsource a number of its services, which is expected to have a further impact on the size of its workforce.