The FoI requests, which were placed by Guardian Government Computing, showed West Sussex County Council to have the most significant drop in the number of IT staff in recent years.
The authority recorded a 90 per cent reduction between 2008-09 and January 2012, it was reported. Its in-house ICT team of 138 was reduced to just 12, with many staff transferred to an outsourcing firm and others made redundant.
Hertfordshire council was said to have reduced its IT staff by more than a fifth in the same period, with voluntary redundancies encountered.
Leeds council was said to have recorded a 17 per cent drop – from 323 IT staff in 2008-09 to 268 in 2011-12.
Devon County Council said it had made 24 IT staff redundant, with an overall 14 per cent drop.
Norfolk council saw a 12 per cent drop and Staffordshire County Council 3 per cent.
The reductions have come at a time when both central and local government bodies are becoming increasingly reliant on technology as a way to deliver public services. Moving services online, or making them digital, is becoming seen as a priority by many councils as a means to cut costs – with services being transformed online.
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