Dozens of staff could face redundancy as part of around £30 million in savings to prevent the council from going bankrupt.

Brighton and Hove City Council announced a raft of cost-cutting measures, including a restructuring of its own operations, in order to plug a multimillion-pound budget black hole.

Around 75 council staff are set to be axed, which is expected to save £2.4 million alone.

Trade union Unison had threatened to hold a ballot on industrial action if compulsory redundancies were announced in the council’s budget.

The council said it was working with the union over the budget proposals and said it has been brought in to discuss the plans “as early as we possibly could”.

Councillor Jacob Taylor, finance lead, said: “These are our valued staff who do a great job every day serving residents and we wouldn’t want to have to delete any posts from the council.

“The reality is the scale of the budget cuts that we have had to make because of underfunding has meant we have had to look at every area of the council.

“You can’t make those levels of savings without looking to reduce the staffing costs of the council.”

Cllr Taylor said there is hope to redeploy staff where possible into other vacancies.

“I completely understand it’s upsetting and distressing for staff to face this - blame the Conservative government, not the local council, which is doing the best with a bad hand,” he said.

He said the state of the council’s finances was “worse than I had expected” but the administration had managed to avoid cuts to frontline services, such as libraries and public toilets.

“We have had to make some extremely difficult decisions but we have set a balanced budget for the next financial year and will therefore not be joining the growing list of councils declaring bankruptcy or having to apply to the government for emergency funding support," he said.

Council leader Bella Sankey echoed his sentiment and said: “These are difficult times for our city, but as your Labour council we have rescued the council’s financial position, protected essential frontline services and we are investing in the health and wellbeing of our residents with an ambitious capital programme.”

Despite frontline services being protected from cuts, both council tax and business rates are set to rise, with an increase in the cost of parking permits and light touch parking schemes to a price “nearer to full schemes” also planned.

Residents in a Band D property can expect to pay an extra £100 a year as a result of the 4.99 per cent council tax rise.

Cuts to services for young people who are at risk of homelessness are also planned, including £364,000 in savings by closing St Patrick’s high support rough sleepers' hostel in Cambridge Road, Hove.

Cuts to services at Bright Start Nursery in Barrack Yard, Brighton, have proved controversial among parents, although the council has said the measures avoid the prospect of its closure.

Ed Armston-Sheret, a spokesman for the Save Bright Start campaign, said: “It is galling to be told that the council is maintaining nurseries when they are closing the Bright Start baby room, which will scrap all provision for under twos. Parents with babies are already being turned away.

“We understand the council is in a difficult financial position, but they should at least be honest about the fact that they are presiding over nursery cuts.”

Cllr Taylor said the council had found an “innovative solution” to prevent the nursery’s closure, adding: “Following the consultation with parents, we’ve tweaked the model and every single parent who has a child at Bright Start nursery now who will be of nursery age will be able to take a place at the new offering 500 yards up the road.

“We think it is a pretty good solution that saves a little bit of money for the council but is mainly focused on maintaining council-run nursery provision in the city centre.

“Most councils across the country no longer operate nurseries - they had to cut them years ago because of cuts. We maintain them because we think it’s really important to invest in early years and have that provision for families.”

The Green Party, the official opposition on the city council, criticised Labour’s decision not to share details of the cuts until “the last minute” and accused the administration of “robbing residents and community groups of the chance to campaign for vital services to be saved”.

Steve Davis, leader of the Green group, said: “Early reading of these proposals suggests too many of the cuts planned by Labour focus on services supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our community and far from protecting vital services, Labour is taking lumps out of them and hoping nobody will notice.

“Residents should be in no doubt - this Labour budget will leave many important services and organisations either closed or on the brink. The impact of these decisions will be devastating.

“These cuts are terrible news for the city and its people. You simply cannot gut an organisation and expect it to keep functioning.”

Councillors will first discuss the proposals at a meeting of the strategy, finance and city regeneration committee on Thursday, February 8.