How much are Hammersmith and Westminster councils paying for Kensington & Chelsea redundancies?

As it continues to make savage cuts to local services, Hammersmith & Fulham Tory council has agreed to fork out for redundancy costs at Kensington & Chelsea council.

This shock news is an unwanted result of the plan to merge services in H&F, Westminster and K&C councils. A report to all three boroughs' cabinets in May reveals that the councils intend to cut up to 500 jobs over the next three years and have agreed to share redundancy costs (see here, para 10.1).

While the Tory slashers who run H&F and Westminster councils have undertaken huge redundancy programmes in recent years, the one-nation Tories who run K&C have so far hardly reduced their workforce of 2,800 people and have kept many services in-house. Under the tri-borough plan, however, K&C will be expected to cut many senior and middle management jobs, with H&F and Westminster meeting up to two-thirds of the redundancy bill. See more details here.

At a time when Hammersmith & Fulham Tories are cutting local services, including £3.4 million from Sure Start early years centres, we need to know just how much of local residents' money they plan to spend on making a neighbouring  borough's employees redundant.