Redundancies and ‘exit packages’ to more than 204 employees have cost the county council £5.5m over five years.

According to the authority’s annual accounts for 2021-2022, redundancy costs for 81 employees totalled £524,425 last year.

The figure includes agreements totalling £81,000 for two unidentified senior staff.

Of the 81, there were 25 agreed departures in the lowest earning bracket up to £20,000 while 11 were compulsory redundancies.

The overall figure is lower than the previous year when redundancy costs were £558,240 for 80 staff.

The preceding year, 2019-20, redundancies cost the authority £641,602 for 42 staff. That was dwarfed in 2018-19 when the loss of 62 through redundancy staff cost £1,18m.

But that was exceeded in 2017-18, when 163 employees left at an overall cost of £2,613,499

The county council faces continuing pressure on its budget and recently said it faced having to save as much £60m to bridge a funding gap next year.

Council leader Roger Gough said the council tried to be sparing about making compulsory redundancies.

He said: “We have obligations in two different ways- we have an obligation to the taxpayer to ensure we are getting the right value but equally we have our legal and in some senses moral obligation to people who have worked for us for many years.

"We don’t go out gratuitously seeking to make large payments; we will always make a very careful judgement about when a redundancy is appropriate.”

The government had brought in legislation imposing a cap of £95,000 on exit packages but that was revoked last year after the cap was found to have had unintended consequences.