wdnews@bepp.co.uk

Government plans to cut £1.2 billion from council budgets risk creating a postcode lottery, with some West Country authorities seeing almost a fifth of their funding under threat.

John Denham, Labour's shadow communities secretary, accused the Government of a "very hurried, ill-focused and unfair" approach to slashing budgets.

The cuts, ordered as part of Chancellor George Osborne's package of £6.2 billion in reductions for this year, will not fall on the main block grant from Whitehall.

Instead central government will claw back other individual grants awarded to different parts of the country based on need. It means some areas with higher levels of deprivation which depend more on additional funding risk being hardest hit.

To mitigate some of the impact, the Government plans to lift restrictions which ring-fence other council funding to give councillors more choice over where the cuts will fall.

Grants to tackle youth crime, anti-social behaviour and terrorism are among those vulnerable to cuts, along with funding for one-to-one tuition, breakfast clubs, supporting people with special needs and community cohesion projects.

Mr Denham said the demand for cuts during this financial year posed a real threat to services: "This is a very unfair package aimed at hitting those who can least afford to be hit by cuts.

"It is very difficult to see how even the best run local authorities can deal with this without impacting on frontline services."

Among district councils in the region, Taunton Deane depends on funding streams at risk of cuts for just 1.1 per cent of their budgets. In North Devon 4.5 per cent of income is potentially threatened and in West Somerset 8.3 per cent.

More than 18 per cent of Devon County Council and Somerset County Council's income from central government is at risk of being cut.

Mr Denham said it was a "very unfair way of distributing the burden".

Details of exactly where the axe will fall were due to be announced to Parliament last week, but the plan was shelved at the last moment.

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "The Government is still discussing the precise detail of the local government savings package and will ensure Parliament is informed through a statement as soon as this work and analysis is completed."

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has claimed the cuts are needed as a direct result of Labour's "burnt earth" spending spree.