LEAD councillors slammed the government for hitting frontline services following the latest batch of cutbacks.

Reading Borough Council (RBC) intends to save £11.25m by reducing spending on adult and children’s services, in order to close its budget gap.

Vulnerable and homeless people could see an increase in rent for temporary accommodation, while nurses could be asked to pay to park near the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

Councillor Jo Lovelock, leader of the council, said the decisions were being made with a ‘heavy heart’ and were an inevitable consequence of continued government cuts.

Speaking at the council’s Policy Committee meeting on Monday evening, she said: “None of us on the Labour administration wants to be bringing forward these proposals.

“We agonised for hours over the proposals. The fact of the matter is you cannot take the amount of money that the government has taken out of Reading.

“Reading has had funding cut by £57.5 million between 2010 and 2020. We were promised there would be a review of government funding but there has been nothing to reassure us.”

RBC identified savings of more than £70m since 2010, but a ‘black hole’ funding gap means further cuts will be made.

The council is hoping to save £743k by improving the recruitment of permanent staff in children’s services and asking schools to front-up £161k for improvements and running costs.

Cllr Lovelock added: “There is still a great deal of uncertainty for 2020 which is only three years away. We have to operate with a balanced budget. We are not the government and we cannot work with a huge deficit.

“These proposals are brought forward with a heavy heart and wherever possible we have tried to protect frontline services, but as you can see that will not be entirely possible.

“All areas are under scrutiny and decisions are being made across the board, none of which are made comfortably.”