The scale of job losses at Birmingham City Council – more than 14,000 since 2009 – is a staggering statistic. But even more mind boggling is the fact that a little more than two years ago the council found it necessary to employ almost 62,000 people.

Birmingham is a big place, and we shall no doubt be told that the challenge of providing public services to a million people requires a sizeable workforce. But to put this in some perspective, BT manages to get by with about 100,000 employees, while BP has 108,000 staff throughout the entire world.

There will be those who will claim that the city council, which now has a workforce of 47,489, still has some way to go before it becomes the mean and lean organisation that the political leadership talks about.

Strip out the schools workforce and the council is left with 21,288 employees whose job it is to deliver the core services of social care, housing, parks, refuse collection, street cleaning, planning, culture and transport.

Most private sector businesses might take the view that the council is still drastically overstaffed despite the recent entrenchment. They might also gaze in amazement at an £18.7 million bill for consultants, based on the claim that the council doesn’t have enough skilled staff to carry out highly specialist work.

That having been said, job losses on the scale seen since 2009 represent a personal tragedy for many families in Birmingham. By no means all of those who have left will have done so willingly, many are likely to have joined the queue at the nearest Job Centre, or will have been forced into low-paid employment.