Birmingham city council could cut up to 600 jobs in a wave of redundancies months after effectively declaring itself bankrupt. An email went out to workers on Tuesday informing them of the plans, but no decision has been made yet on how many posts could be made redundant, or when the cuts will begin, a spokesperson for the authority said. “We anticipate that (subject to consultation) up to 600 posts may be declared redundant across the council,” the spokesperson said. “We will now start formal consultation with our corporate trade union representatives and follow these with directorate collective consultation meetings. These consultation meetings with trade unions will continue to take place regularly.” The possible 600 figure is in addition to posts “that have been deleted through organisational redesign that were already vacant” and “nor does it include vacancies”, the council spokesman added. In September, the city council – the largest local authority in the country – issued a section 114 notice, signalling that it did not have the resources to balance its budget. Issuing a section 114 halted any new expenditures by the council, with the exception of protecting vulnerable people and statutory services. The council blamed its financial straits on problems with a new IT system that would cost £100m to fix, as well as a £760m bill for equal pay claims – in June, the council revealed it had paid out £1.1bn in equal pay claims over the past decade, and had a current liability of £650-750m, accruing at a rate of £5m to £14m a month. The council also said it “had £1bn of funding taken away by successive Conservative governments”. Birmingham’s section 114 notice prompted Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, to send in commissioners to oversee the council. Birmingham is the seventh council since 2020 to have issued such a notice.