STAFF have lost out to services with 450 redundancies announced at Essex County Council today.

The cabinet agreed the budget for 2011/12, which will go to full council for a final decision later this month, choosing to try and save services and slash staff numbers.

This year the council has made 123 redundancies, 69 of which were voluntary.

But next year hundreds more will face the axe.

Services haven’t missed the chop completely but the council cabinet invited taxpayers to “Go Compare” with other councils confident it has prepared better and saved more than other counties when faced with making hundreds of millions of pounds of savings.