A CONSULTANT overseeing the outsourcing of Worcester's bin collections to a private company has come under pressure to reveal how many jobs could be axed.

Matthew Heath, who has been hired by Worcester City Council to help manage the huge task ahead, has admitted it will be "a difficult question to answer" until a deal can be struck.

As your Worcester News has reported in recent months, the city's Conservative leadership wants to outsource rubbish pick-ups, street cleaning and park maintenance to the private sector by 2017 to save cash.

The move, which would implicate 111 workers, is being opposed by the Labour group, which wants the service kept in-house.

Mr Heath, who has worked with more than 30 councils and helped secure around 12 similar deals over the last decade, has been brought in to oversee the efforts.

The consultant has attended a city council scrutiny meeting to take part in a Q&A over the implications of it.

During the debate Labour group leader Councillor Adrian Gregson said he had "very little faith" the Tory leadership will make the right decisions.

He pointed to "half of them" sitting in the county council's cabinet, where there has been recent controversy over private firm Babcock taking on 391 school support staff only to announce proposals to axe 103 of them by Christmas.

Councillor Gregson questioned Mr Heath on what kind of job losses could be expected under the city council's project.

"That's quite a difficult question to answer," he said.

"Every authority is different - every one has a different starting point, different services they want to be included in any contract and different things they want to get out of it.

"To generalise in terms of what the workforce would be like, I can't really answer that."

During the debate David Sutton, who heads up the cleaner and greener department, said he was intent on involving the workers "throughout the process" as well as the leadership.

"We're very keen to involve the staff throughout the process, there's a public consultation ongoing at the moment as well," he said.

"Providers may come forward with all sorts of possible options, sometimes I may need to go back to the administration to see if there is any 'red lines', anything they wouldn't be prepared to do."

The council hopes to negotiate two different contracts with one or more companies, working with district councils in Malvern and Wychavon.

There is hope a deal could save a combined £1.6 million of taxpayers' money per year, depending on what sort of offers come back.

The Conservative cabinet has insisted detailed performance standards would be integral to any deal, which it is aiming to launch from September 2017.

Bosses say they hope most workers can have their employment transferred over.

* Click HERE to see what the leadership said about the jobs earlier this month.