PROPOSALS to axe up to 31 Worcester City Council roles have sparked concern services could suffer.

The city's opposition Conservative group says it wants answers over how the cleaner and greener department will cope with fewer staff.

As the Worcester News reported earlier this week, as part of a wider 'transformation plan' aimed at saving £2.2 million around 12 per cent of the workforce could be gone by 2020.

Of the 31 possible job losses, around 25 posts are thought to be in danger within the cleaner and greener function, which deals with bin collections, street cleaning and park maintenance.

The Labour leadership says it hopes non-replacement of staff who go and voluntary redundancies will plug the gap, and has pledged to protect the frontline.

But dismayed Tories say a decision by Labour not to outsource the department to the private sector was folly.

Cllr Marc Bayliss, Conservative group leader, said: "The inescapable issue here is that they refused to go into a joint commissioning plan (with district councils in Malvern and Wychavon) over cleaner and greener, and now they come forward with proposals to cut jobs.

"I'm left wondering why they were opposed to a project that would have delivered a better outcome.

"If we have to lose 25 jobs, if they worked for a bigger group, for example Biffa (a waste services firm), they would have had better opportunities.

"But if they can't work for us now, there's nowhere else in this organisation for them to go."

Fellow Conservative Cllr Alan Feeney has also weighed in, saying "we were promised the same service standards with no job losses".

Labour Cllr Jabba Riaz, cabinet member for clean, green and leisure services, said: "One of the key requirements I've made to officers in the transformation plan is that frontline services must not be affected - we've made that loud and clear.

"People should notice no difference, in fact they should notice an improvement because a lot of processes will be streamlined.

"A lot of it is about cutting out little steps in our processes so when people report things, it gets actioned quickly without going through lots of little chains."