HUNDREDS of jobs at a council look increasingly likely to be lost in the next three years.

A Hartlepool Council report argues that £5m to £10m should be found to make redundancy payments.

The same report has revealed that the authority has £4m more than expected in its end-of-year budget.

The cabinet report, to be discussed next Monday, argues that Hartlepool Council should prepare to find the money to cut an unspecified number of jobs in order to save £14m a year by 2014.

A total of 90 redundancies were made at the authority in the past year, costing £1,470,000 in one-off payments.

Last year, Hartlepoolmayor Stuart Drummond predicted one in four of the 4,500 jobs at the council could be lost, but so far nothing like that number of cuts have been made.

Chris Little, chief finance officer, said: "Having looked at the impact of redundancies made during the last two years, we were able to estimate a potential cost.

"However, no decision has been made about any redundancies at all and, in any case, how much would be paid depends on length of service and the wages of staff.

"I can say we have one of the lowest redundancy packages in the North-East."

Councillors will also discuss the good news that the authority has £4m more than expected in its end-of-year budget, owing to previous cost-cutting.

The authority has an overall budget of £278m, but most of that comes from specific grants and the authority only has direct control over £92m, 56 per cent of which is spent on staff costs. That £92m budget must be reduced to £78m by April 2014.

The £4m is likely to be put aside for unpredictable but mandatory services, including emergency care of children and vulnerable adults.