Cash-strapped Kingston Council has forked out more than £1m in redundancy payouts in the past year.

A Freedom of Information request by the Surrey Comet revealed the council paid out £875,500 in redundancy packages for 70 employees, who were made compulsorily redundant in 2010-11.

A further £351,600 was paid into pension funds by the council on behalf of the redundant staff members during the same year.

Christine Melson, chairwoman of council tax protest group Isitfair, said she would like to see the payouts go down to the statutory minimum.

She said: “It’s too much money; they are still receiving bigger payouts than people in the private sector. What they have to remember is the private sector is paying for all these heavy redundancies."

Kingston Council workers were among those who took to the picket lines to protest over changes to public sector pensions in a national day of strike action in November last year.

A council spokesman said the redundancy payments made substantial savings on wage bills and that a recent agreement had been made with staff for a reduction in the payouts.

He said: “It should be noted that the business case for staff reductions considers the one-off costs of making redundancies against the savings on salary payments and ongoing costs, which would otherwise continue indefinitely.”

Acting branch secretary for Kingston Unison Majid Mafi said: “Considering that most of these people have worked for RBK for many years this figure doesn’t seem excessive.

“Although, obviously, we would like the payouts to be increased, they are guided and decided by the policy and procedures on redundancy within RBK.”

The request also revealed Kingston Council did not offer voluntary redundancy to staff, which many councils have used as a way to slash costs.

Glasgow City Council paid out £32.7m for voluntary early retirement between January 2009 and August 2011.

Gloucestershire County Council forked out £3m in pay-offs to 187 employees, which include compulsory and voluntary redundancies, between June 2010 and May 2011.

Southampton City Council announced plans to cap redundancy payouts in a bid to save money in December last year.