by Alan McGuinness

More than 70 jobs are at risk in the latest round of Medway Council’s efficiency drive.

As part of the Better for Less programme, which aims to save £14 million over the next three years, 280 staff will be consulted on plans to centralise support teams and merge coustomer contact point and library staff.

The council is also seeking to centralise its procurement as many departments do this individually, and bosses claim this means the council isn’t always getting value for money.

This will lead to the loss of around 70 posts, but finance chief Cllr Alan Jarret (Con), was keen to stress this doesn’t necessarily mean redundancies.

Finance chief Cllr Alan Jarrett (Con) said: “This doesn’t necessarily mean there will be that number of redundancies. There may be some redundancies, there may not.”

Under the plans residents will be able to visit Medway’s five town centre libraries to pay bills and contact the council at evenings and weekends.

The changes are in the wake of cuts in funding to the council from central government.