Lancashire County Council plans to axe 2,500 jobs 14 January 2014 Last updated at 14:20 About 2,500 full-time jobs are set to go at Lancashire County Council because of budget cuts, the authority has said. The staff cuts are expected to come into force by April 2016. Lancashire County Council (LCC) leader Jennifer Mein said the authority would do "everything" to avoid compulsory redundancies. She said she was "absolutely devastated" but it was the "harsh reality" of the £300m of savings it needs to make over the next four years. Significant posts The Labour councillor said: "It is heartbreaking to think there are 2,500 families that are going to be affected by this. We have had to be sensible about it; we are being asked to reduce our budget by £800m to £500m and I think most people would understand that it won't be achieved without significant posts being lost. She said she was going to "do everything we can to avoid compulsory redundancies." "My hope is that enough people will choose to go on a voluntary basis and our proposed approach has that outcome in mind," she said. Ms Mein said the number of job cuts would leave a "big hole" in services. "We are going to have to reshape our services completely," she said. What we are trying to do is protect services as far as we possibly can to the most vulnerable people... in the face of the drastic cuts. The proposals are to go before the council's cabinet on 24 January. The authority employs 34,500 people but the majority of jobs are funded through the schools budget. There are 13,000 non-school employees at risk by the proposed cuts.