Fears for rural poor as savage cuts loom in services

North Yorkshire County Council announced plans yesterday to make swingeing cuts totalling 20.5m from its budgets for services including adult social care and libraries.

Up to 23 of the council's 42 libraries could be lost, and the proposals are also aiming to reduce its 18 residential care homes to just six sites.

The announcement came as the wife of the Archbishop of York publicly questioned the Government's spending review.

Businesswoman and charity worker Margaret Sentamu – the wife of Archbishop John Sentamu – told the Yorkshire Post that people already trapped in poverty will suffer most.

"With the cuts being made so severely, it is the poor who get poorer and feel more and more squeezed," she said. "It's the old ladies who, for example, won't be getting help to get washed and dressed in the morning so they can face the day, because their local council is cutting back on home help."

North Yorkshire County Council alone is having to enforce savings of more than 69m over the next four financial years.

The detailed plans which were announced yesterday, as the Prime Minister faced tough questions from senior MPs over the impact of Government spending cuts, will see a total of 20.5m shaved off the 132m annual budget for the authority's adult and community services directorate. Almost half of the savings will have to be enforced before the end of March 2012.

The proposals mean that up to 350 posts could be lost when a series of residential care homes are axed, and a further 65 jobs could go from the under threat libraries.

At least three of the care homes are, however, due to be replaced by ExtraCare facilities run by housing associations in Richmond, Tadcaster and Settle. Proposed changes to the management and staffing of the directorate will save at least 1m and cut 130 posts.

The Yorkshire Post revealed in July that libraries were set to bear the brunt of public spending cuts as new figures revealed one in 20 had already been closed across the region during the past decade.

The county council has announced that it is focusing its resources on just 18 library sites, placing another 23 in jeopardy.

A fleet of 10 mobile libraries is also due to be ditched, with a second "super-mobile" vehicle introduced to replace the service in certain areas of the county.

Council directors say communities need to step in to run their local libraries – or face losing them.

A deal which has seen residents take on the running of the library in the Dales town of Hawes is being seen as a model for the future.

The council's corporate director of adult and community services, Derek Law, admitted the cutbacks posed his greatest challenges in a 35-years in local government.

A far greater emphasis is due to placed on a technology revolution using motion sensors and monitoring devices – dubbed telecare – to allow the elderly and vulnerable to remain in their own homes.

Mr Law said: "When it comes to adult social care, the first priority has to be the protection of the most vulnerable. Is it possible to protect the same number of vulnerable adults and children in North Yorkshire communities for less money?

"The honest answer is probably not, but we can minimise the damaging impact if we think and behave differently."

Other authorities in the region, including Sheffield Council and Hull Council, said that no decisions had been reached on where cuts would be made to library services.