THE leader of Hampshire County Council fears his authority will among the hardest hit by the Chancellor’s spending cuts.

Councillor Ken Thornber said he was bracing himself for funding cuts of up to 32 per cent over the next four years – far higher than the 26 per cent the Government is slashing from overall council funding.

Cllr Thornber said: “I suspect that Hampshire will fare even worse given the Treasury’s view of Hampshire as an affluent county.”

He said the county council had received the lowest level of grant for a number of years and was likely to see more significant losses than other councils, particularly those in the north.

Cllr Thornber said he was preparing to make savings of £140m over the next four years, including £33m to pay for inflation, equalising women’s pay and the increasing costs of an older population.

He said Government funding to help freeze council tax and an estimated £2m from the extra £2bn of social care funding announced by the Chancellor “would help”.

But he said that council departments had been instructed to draw up savings of eight per cent a year, with 150 managers set to be axed from the council’s 40,000 workforce in the next two or three years.

Cllr Thornber warned more posts would go from the 1,000 or staff that leave the authority each year.

He said the council had already frozen recruitment and was operating a voluntary redundancy scheme.

The job losses resulting from the Spending Review will come on top of the 170 education job cuts Hampshire County Council will have to make from a grant cut this summer and the 60 library staff facing the axe due to an “overspend”.

Local authorities won’t know their exact funding grants until December.

Cllr Thornber and other council leaders will meet communities secretary Eric Pickles tomorrow to discuss the implications of the cuts.