THE Government Office for the North-East is to shed a third of its staff by October 2008.

The job cuts, which will affect all Government Offices in England, have been ordered in a Treasury review of the network

The review also directsthe offices to play a more strategic role.

It is thought that more than 85 administrative jobs will go in the North-East office, but a spokesman yesterday said that no compulsory redundancies would be involved.

In a statement to The Northern Echo, the spokesman said: "Government Office for the North- East welcomes the fact that it will have a more strategic role in future, with a greater focus of working closely with key partners.

"Our role as the essential link between central and local government and its partners will be strengthened, and we will play a critical part in improving the regional, local and neighbourhood delivery of Government priorities."

He said the office would be at the heart of developing a new relationship between Government and localities.

But he also confirmed that the cut backs would be a direct result of the office becoming less involved in the administration of national grants.

The spokesman also confirmed: "We are working on the implementation plan for the review and are confident it will be ready by the end of June.

Talking about the number of posts to go, he added: "The review calls for a 33 per cent reduction in staff between October 2004 and 2008.''

He said the staffing level in 2004 was 340 and that posts had already been reduced by eight per cent since then.

He said: "We expect the remaining reduction to be achieved through natural turnover and also by redeploying some members of staff to other public bodies and in some cases by voluntary severance. We do not expect compulsory redundancies to be necessary."