Job losses are looming in Bradford Council's beleaguered legal services department where income is falling despite increasing work levels.

The saga over the redevelopment of Odsal Stadium and £4.7 million settlement made to Bradford Bulls in 1986 has increased the department's work-load.

The service which has the equivalent of 86 full-time staff has also dealt with the planned £200 million Broadway shopping scheme and redevelopment plans for Listers Mill at Manningham.

The increase in the number of children coming into Council care has stretched the service to the limit and sometimes there have not been enough solicitors to cover appointments, according to head of legal services Susan Betteridge.

As a result, the service has had to bear the extra costs of bringing in outside barristers and solicitors.

Large amounts of time are also being spent on the transfer of the Council's 26,000 council houses to Bradford Community Housing Trust, she added.

In a report to go to the Council's corporate scrutiny committee on Tuesday, she says: "The volume of work continues to grow, income from Education Bradford is below expected levels and recruitment is difficult."

She added income would also be reduced once the homes were transferred from the ownership of the authority.

"The service is looking at a number of ways of dealing with this, but at this stage redundancies cannot be ruled out", said Miss Betteridge.

"We are hoping we could avoid this but if not we hope it would be a voluntary situation."

The committee will be told that outside solicitors doing commercial work cost between £150 and £210 an hour compared with between £50 and £75 when the authority does the work itself.

Despite the problems, surveys of clients reported to the committee show 89 per cent of people viewed the service as good or excellent.

Scrutiny committee chairman Councillor Glen Miller said he did not want to comment on the report before the meeting.

Add to come from Unison