FRONTLINE services such as education are to be hit by £6.8m of cuts because of central Government belt-tightening, according to Enfield Council.

Finance cabinet member Andrew Stafford said £6.8m of budget cuts will have to be made to funds for measures to tackle unemployment, education support, children’s services, vulnerable adults and community safety.

The cuts, to a range of grants including a £2.7m cut to the area based grant, a non-specific revenue stream, were announced by the Department for Communities and Local Government on June 10.

Cllr Stafford has pledged that council workers will not face compulsory redundancies as a result.

Officers are now preparing a list of savings, a feat Cllr Stafford describes as “challenging” because they come on top of an estimated £20m of efficiency savings planned for 2010/11.

The cuts had not been taken into account when the council’s Medium Term Financial Plan was agreed in February. The plan sets out the council’s entire spending programme to 2014.

Cllr Stafford said: “This tough financial climate is expected to continue for some years yet. The scale of the impact is significant and it is frankly misleading to suggest that … difficult cuts can be avoided. They cannot.”

Conservative leader Michael Lavender said Labour councillors should be "ashamed". He said: "Labour fought the election on the basis that they would spend the reserves, reduce the tax burden and maintain services, when they knew that this would not be possible.

"Within weeks they propose to make cuts in services. It is not necessarily the need to reduce expenditure that causes me concern, but the deceitful message the Labour Party employed to get power."

The council will now set up a £1.9m fund, using some of the council’s estimated £60m reserves, for a “three-year development programme with the voluntary sector”.

Areas proposed for efficiency savings:

• Expenditure on the Local Area Agreement targets, such as cutting crime, improving healthcare and boosting employment by £3.6m, £2.7m of which can be met from money not yet allocated

• Children’s Services projects by £2.181m, £1.7m of which is met from uncommitted funding

• The Working Neighbourhoods Fund programme, to reduce long-term unemployment, where funding is to be reduced by £162k. £1.48m will continue to be spent on regeneration activity.

• Supporting People programme – reducing administrative support for this housing-related support programme for vulnerable people

• A series of Home Office-funded projects totalling £126k

What do you think of the council's proposals? Email hcrown@london.newsquest.co.uk