COUNCILLORS’ allowances should be reduced and a ceiling placed on senior officers’ salaries before jobs and frontline services are lost at Dorset County Council.

Those are just two of the demands made by Dorset’s GMB union bosses in a ‘budget’ they claim is a viable alternative to the one voted through by councillors in February.

The cash-strapped council has suffered massive cuts to central government funding and could shed 500 jobs, close 20 Libraries and axe school crossing patrols in a bid to save £55million by 2013/14.

GMB Dorset branch secretary Gary Pattison said his union’s proposals, which include halting controversial building projects, are necessary to achieve the savings required.

The union is urging the council to back away from the proposed Purbeck Schools Review and a new library for Dorchester to save nearly £40m.

And they have highlighted £37m of uncollected business rates as evidence of income available from closer working between County Hall and the county’s district councils, which collect the charge.

The county council has announced that up to 500 jobs could be lost this year and in January proposed 24 days unpaid leave over two years as an alternative to shedding a further 155 posts. The reward packages of the council’s senior officers have been targeted by the GMB as a means of saving £650,000 by introducing a £50,000 salary cap.

Mr Pattison said: “Our members are talking about real cuts to their income of about 20 per cent.

“If you’re talking about making that level of reduction to people’s salaries then senior managers need to bite the bullet.”

One council worker, who has been forced to reapply for his job, said he agreed with the principle of finding savings through alternative means rather than cutting jobs and frontline.

However, he said the feeling among staff was that the job losses had already been confirmed and there was nothing staff or the unions could do to change it. He said: “The point is this is called a consultation at the moment but it’s already been decided.

“We are not being taken any notice of.”

Another council employee, who did not wish to be named, said: “It would be nice to see councillors and also managers taking the same cuts as the of the staff. If things are going to be cut then I see no reason whey they shouldn’t be included.”

He also backed another suggestion by the GMB budget to offer voluntary redundancy to all staff at the council, rather than making compulsory redundancies in certain areas.

Spokesman for Ad Lib (the Association of Dorset Libraries) Mike Chaney backed the call to shelve the plans for a new library in Dorchester in the hope it could preserve the future of 20 other libraries in the county that are threatened with closure.

He said: “Naturally we would support anything which would ensure that the building of the new library is postponed until the economic sun begins to shine again.”