Front-line losses 'inevitable' as council budgets slashed by 23pc

Councillors warned of "inevitable" losses to the front line despite Ministers telling them to cut jobs before services after they revealed the fate of every local authority from Whitehall's tightening of the purse-strings.

Town halls in the region will lose up to 23 per cent of Government grants by 2013, with Leeds City Council, Yorkshire's biggest authority, losing 76m and Bradford nearly 80m in the toughest council funding settlement "in living memory".

Thousands of police jobs are also set to go, with West Yorkshire's chief constable revealing he expects up to 2,000 posts to be axed over the next four years, although fire authorities fared slightly better and face smaller cuts.

Yesterday's announcement by Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles confirmed the worst fears of some councils after the deep spending cuts in Whitehall budgets unveiled in the Chancellor's four-year Spending Review earlier this year.

The hardest-hit councils will lose 17 per cent of their funding from central government grants for 2011/12 and authorities across the country face a total funding shortfall of 6.5bn over the next year.

But, using a different criteria of spending power – which takes into account receipts from council tax and NHS support for social care – Mr Pickles said no council would suffer a reduction of more than 8.9 per cent next year or 2012/13. The average reduction in spending power would be 4.4 per cent.

He said the settlement was "progressive and fair" because steps had been taken to protect the poorest areas which rely most heavily on public sector services.

Labour, however, said that according to the "spending power" measure, Doncaster, Hull and North East Lincolnshire would be the hardest hit councils in the region and claimed "poorest neighbourhoods" were hardest hit.

Baroness Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: "This is the toughest local government finance settlement in living memory.

"We have been clear that the level of spending reduction that councils are going to have to make goes way beyond anything that conventional efficiency drives, such as shared services, can achieve. We have to face the fact that this level of grant reduction will inevitably lead to cuts in services."

Leeds City Council leader Keith Wakefield said: "This is a cut far too deep, far too quick. Jobs will go, front-line services will inevitably be hit – these are the worst cuts in local government since the 1930s."

Councils have previously warned of having to close libraries and increase charges for services but Mr Pickles rejected their complaints and warned they should still be able to save millions of pounds by cutting waste,

"Before we see libraries closed I want to see them merge their back office functions, I'd like to see them sharing chief executives, their legal department, their accounts department, their payroll, their IT, their planning, their education support functions," he said. "When they've done all that if they feel they have to close libraries then they should come to see me again."

On a hectic day in Westminster, police forces and fire and rescue services also learned their fate for the next two years, while the Government released more details of its "pupil premium" directing extra funding at poorer pupils.

Sir Norman Bettison, Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, said he expects the force to have 1,500 to 2,000 fewer employees in four years, with redundancies likely to be necessary.

"The bottom line is that we are facing a future with fewer staff," he said.

"Whilst there will be fewer police officers, the reductions will be felt more in supporting roles in order to protect front-line policing."

Meanwhile, a report by the health select committee today issues a warning that sweeping cuts to social services budgets could heap further pressure on the NHS which faces making "unprecedented" savings worth 20bn in the next three years.

MPs predict social services chiefs will need to find major efficiencies to avoid service cuts and reject assurances from Ministers that access to vital social care for the elderly and disabled will not be hit.