A STAFF suggestion box helped saved East Cambridgeshire District Council more than £1,500 last year.

A scheme where members of staff could drop off ideas to help save the authority money was run during the course of 2010/11 and two suggestions in particular resulted in savings for the public purse.

A total of £300 was saved by cutting the authority’s corporate membership of the Wildlife Trust while a staggering £1,210 was saved by scrapping the council’s entry to the Loo of the Year Awards.

The council introduced the scheme in response to a 29 per cent reduction in grants from Government which required it to make £2million worth of savings by 2015.

As part of the cost cutting, the council says it has also increased some fees and charges and has frozen recruitment to some vacant staff posts.