One of Britain’s biggest local authorities announced it is to slash yet more jobs and services yesterday as Westminster cuts bite ever deeper.

Birmingham City Council is to axe more than 1,000 jobs and reduce opening hours at its flagship £189 million library.

General union GMB said the new cuts threatened “drastic reductions to essential services.”

Unveiling the Labour-run authority’s 2015 budget, council leader Sir Albert Bore said it needed to “save” £117m next year.

Funding reductions meant the council had already cut to the bone and was now “scraping away” at the bones themselves, he said.

“The government’s approach to distributing the cuts means that those authorities with the greatest levels of need are facing the largest percentage cuts.

“Protecting the most vulnerable of our citizens, in particular children, is our top priority and we intend to invest a further £19.9m in child protection services from next year.”

GMB regional organiser Gill Whittaker voiced concern that there would be significant budget cuts, with drastic reductions to essential services.

She said: “As well as expressing anger at the impact this will have on GMB members’ jobs, the GMB is anxious about the impact that these budget reductions, leading to cuts in services, will have on the residents of Birmingham.

“This is particularly in light of the government-commissioned Kerslake report which states that Birmingham has some of the most deprived and vulnerable demographics in the country, (characterising a population) for whom these essential services are a lifeline.”