some of the female top management are paid £200,000 a year plus each. they are all still in post. Enough said

Well said James O (3 April).

I wonder if it would have made the news had it been men? Just as men bore the brunt of job losses in mining, major industry and of course the Armed Forces.

I am a male and a Ex CCC employee and I can tell you all that our Ladies are indispensable in the jobs they do, they are more efficient and conscientious and work hard,they value their jobs
I think its a disgrace they are being cruelly sacked because of Government cuts.

These figures are totaly misleading they fail to mention that the vast ammount of administration and office duties are taken up by women not men,they are either saying the men were kept on at the loss of the women,if that is the case it is discrimination or the fact is most were women working their anyhow,who wrote this some PC feminist with nothing better to do!.

"The real work, ..., it's done by the men. The road construction, road repairs, building, street cleaning, refuse collection, grounds maintenance is all done by men ... while women sit in their offices drinking coffee, eating biscuits ..."

So how many men does it take to dig a hole - oh yeh one to dig, one to watch him dig, one to watch the clock and tell them when it's bate time. Get over yourself Tony, women, like Craig says, keep the place ticking over and make their superiors jobs easier. Go past any of the men doing the jobs you list and you're more likely to see them in their vans drinking coffee, eating butties and 'reading' page 3 than out doing their work

@Tony, I think you are being too simplistic, a lot of the jobs performed by women are clerical ones needed to keep their 'Managers' up to speed and 'in the loop'. Without these women, the 'Managers' would be shown to be useless wastes of expansive salaries and that would be unimaginable. The managers can then claim it is not their fault they cannot do their job as they are undermanned (womanned). Get rid of the MANAGERS and keep the ones that are REALLY doing the work!

Tony i have never heard such rubbish in all my life!!! If I sat around all day drinking coffee, eating and chatting all day about the latest fad diets, up to 600 women and MEN would not get paid, CRB checks would not be done putting both children and adults at risk, correct equipment would not be ordered (obviously this equipment is only ordered for the men as according to you women don't work just chat, eat etc), along with numerous other tasks done on a daily basis. Please come and "sit" in my chair and let's see you do my job which used to be done by 1 full time and 1 part time employee on 25 hours and like most CC jobs has suffered severe cuts, the staff go but the work still has to be done. I really want to see how many cups of coffee you have time for when most of the time we don't even have a lunch break as we don't have time and work and answer the phone I between bites of a sandwich! Oh & ps don't forget to bring the biccies but make sure they are low in fat as we're all on the new fad diet!

AS usual, this is just statistical noise. The real work, as with most other things, is not done by the women, it's done by the men.

The road construction, road repairs, building, street cleaning, refuse collection, grounds maintenance is all done by men and in most cases (carlisle city council an exception) it's contracted out while women sit in their offices drinking coffee, eating biscuits while gossiping over their latest diet.

Because these services are contracted out they dont show up in reductions however they are just as much as part of the service.

Amazing isnt it, when a council cuts back on unnecessary expenditure, its mostly being carried out by women.