Selby District Council leader Coun Mark Crane said a cut of 20 per-cent in the current government budget, which last year was £15 million, could see 12 per cent of jobs go.

The BBC report, released on Monday, says at least 25,000 council posts in England will be under threat in the next three to five years, according to feedback from 49 councils who took part in the research.

The survey also revealed more than 70 per cent predict they will have to cut spending by between five and 20 per cent during the same period.

Coun Crane (right) added: "Out of our budget, which last year was £25 million, we received 60 per cent funding from the government.

"I can't give exact figures of how many jobs or frontline services any cuts will affect as I don't have exact figures yet. However, the cut could be as much as 20 per cent.

"We, along with every other council, will have to look at our budget very closely, because as things stand we could be facing massive cuts.
"It's speculation exactly how much in monetary terms this translates to, but any cuts could be damaging.

"This is a time of great uncertainty. We have to do a lot of groundwork in order to make difficult decisions. We want to keep job cuts down to the absolute minimum.

"We don't want to panic people. Our management structure has already been cut right back. There's not an easy answer to this."

Coun Steve Shaw-Wright hit back at the claims and said the council was management-heavy, and cuts should be made there before hitting frontline services.

He stormed: "A lot of management positions are replicated across the county and district. Many do a good job but we should look at making our money go further by working in partnership with other officers.
"For example, we have a district chief executive, assistant chief

executive, a strategic manager and other heavily paid officers. They all do a good job but they're replicated across the county. This isn't a good use of resources in the current climate.

"We also need to look at the services we contract out for the good of our future."

Tony Travers, of the Greater London group at the London School of economics, said: "The scale of job reductions suggests tens of thousands of jobs are likely to be lost throughout the country.

"It seems there will be a sharp cut in council jobs in 2010 and for some years after.

"Nothing like this has happened for a generation. To minimise the impact on the public would require massive efficiencies in all services, higher charges for many and sharing back office staff with other public bodies."