CALLS have been made to protect frontline services as it was revealed hundreds of jobs are to be lost in swingeing cuts at one of the country??s largest councils.

CALLS have been made to protect frontline services as it was revealed hundreds of jobs are to be lost in swingeing cuts at one of the country??s largest councils.

The recovery plan to lift Edinburgh City Council out of years of financial hardship outlines initial proposals to move more powers to local workers and cut numbers of middle managers. No compulsory redundancies are planned.

The people of Edinburgh are now to be consulted on the plan that comes as the Accounts Commission accused the council of not preparing to tackle a flood of future cash problems as the amount of money the council must save annually by 2017/18 looks set to rise by £31m, to £138m.

Concerns were raised over services yesterday with cuts across the city including the axing of leisure facilities being considered.

The council will consider dividing the city into four administrative districts and that powers be devolved where possible to local officers, a move that raised concerns with union officials.

Several hundred of the 16,000 posts are expected to be cut back.

Green group convenor Steve Burgess said services must be protected.

He said: ??At a time when swimming pools are threatened with closure, school budgets are being cut and home care services under pressure, the council needs to look radically at alternatives to service cuts.

??However, the real test of reform lies not in budget cuts or job losses, but in making services more local, streamlining decision-making and improving the service when people first contact the council.

??If those are the priorities, then it is good for staff, good for service-users and better for the budget.

??So if that is what happens, urgent attention has to be paid to ensuring staff are equipped for the transformation, with high quality training and support for new skills.??

Council leader Andrew Burns said it is expected that if the report is adopted by the Labour-SNP coalition next week that the majority of posts to be lost would be in middle management and not on frontline service provision.

The council will consider dividing the city into four administrative districts and powers would be devolved where possible to locally focused officers.

It plans to bring into the locality teams services previously managed centrally, reduce the need for staff to negotiate between council services for resources

and reduce the need to refer decisions to managers for decision-making.

Health and social care services will be organised and delivered in the four administrative districts.

Chief Executive Sue Bruce has the full support of the administration and it is thought the plans to tackle budget shortfalls will ??again be supported by the coalition??.

The council has struggled through issues including the Mortonhall baby ashes scandal, the death of a 12-year-old girl who was crushed by a wall at school and long-running issues over statutory repairs but insiders said many of the cash problems had accumulated over many years.

Ms Bruce said in the report: ??As we adopt new channels of approach for service delivery, we will look to optimise the use of online and mobile transactions in order to make savings, which will safeguard face to face interventions for those who need this the most.

??The Channel Shift project will change the way front line services are delivered and therefore impact on the staffing mix within the organisation.??

She added: ??The proposed delivery model will remove the fragmentation of some functions in conducting financial assessments and managing debt.

??This will help us to reduce processing costs and improve consistency and efficiency.

??There is currently significant inconsistency across roles and grades for staff undertaking similar roles across the organisation with some two thousand

different job descriptions across the council.

??This is significantly in excess of what a well functioning and streamlined organisation should hold and is the product of silo behaviour, which has evolved over time within current directorates.??

The chief executive also said in the report: ??Feedback from the Edinburgh residents and partners suggests the current organisation is hard to navigate and that they often feel passed around when trying to access a service.

??The proposed locality model seeks to group services together under the same line of management where they have similar or complementary outcomes, for example, housing support; family support; youth and community justice.??

A spokesman for Unison said it had concerns over jobs losses and the plan to divide the Scottish capital into four districts.

More responsibilities on front line workers would have implications on training and pay, it said.

The union spokesman said: ??Neighbourhood districts have been tried before in other cities and has been shown not to work.??