Top officers at Bradford Council could face compulsory redundancy against the ruling Labour party's own policy, it emerged today.

A major shake-up of the officers' posts may see the Labour group ditching its long-term policy of protecting its staff from enforced job losses.

The news is a fresh blow to the officers - who collectively earn about £1.4 million a year - after a bombshell announcement that jobs would be advertised nationally and they would have to re-apply in a bid to keep their posts.

But Council leader Councillor Ian Greenwood said today that any policy would apply only to top management of the authority's 23,000 workforce.

City Hall union Unison says it has now been told policy agreed by the previous Labour group precluding compulsory redundancy for staff may not be retained for the city's own management.

In the past many staff have been re-deployed and posts frozen when Britain's fourth-biggest Metropolitan Council hit funding problems.

But Coun Greenwood said "no compulsory redundancy" had been Labour policy and not an official agreement.

He admitted there was a possibility top officers may be "displaced" in the shake-up. "But no other staff would be affected. It would only be top management," he said.

Chief Executive Ian Stewart and Coun Greenwood originally hoped to announce their proposals yesterday but said the plans were not yet ready.

They will now have talks with Unison tomorrow before the union meets members on Friday.

The Council says it will give anyone who may lose a job professional help to find new employment.

Sweeping management changes have been announced following the restructure of the Council, with a high-powered, 18-member executive taking all key decisions

Regional Unison officer Keith Williamson said officers were now facing an anxious time to find out if they were to retain their jobs.

He said: "We have received a communication from the council saying they don't think they will be able to retain the policy of no compulsory redundancy.

"This is obviously a major concern to us and there will be opposition, although I can't say in what form."

Tory group Chief Whip Anne Hawkesworth said: "Once more the controlling group seems to have got itself into a mess, this time over employment. But I think Coun Greenwood's comments will be a great relief to Council staff other than the actual top management, who have been worrying over the Christmas period about any knock-on effect.

"As for top management, compulsory redundancy has been a fact of life for a long time in the private sector."

But Councillor David Ward (Idle, Lib Dem) said: "I don't think a radical sort-out should be just a way of getting rid of people. I don't see why there should be a need for compulsory redundancies."

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