Insider Media Limited

Nottingham City Council is to be hit with a bigger cut in its finances than first feared, it has said. The authority says it is facing a 16.5 per cent cut to its budget - equating to £60m in real terms - as opposed to the 8.44 per cent released in official government figures. Its deputy leader Councillor Graham Chapman says the authority will "have to make cuts in services to the most vulnerable".

The authority says it is "among the worst-hit councils in the country by the government cuts". It said city council finance officers are still working through the figures as first assessments revealed that a new formula for presenting council grants "masks the true picture" as NHS and council tax funding has been included.

Nottingham City Council chief executive Jane Todd said: "All of us at every level of the council have been taken aback by the severity of cuts for Nottingham, given the disadvantaged communities we serve.

"We are working hard to get a clear picture but are disappointed that the government has chosen to present the figures in a way which plays down the real impact on places like Nottingham."

Nottingham City Council deputy leader Councillor Graham Chapman added: "We still need to fully assess the announcement but it would appear to be almost as bad as we had feared and is going to hit many Nottingham families hard.

"If we are having to make savings of this magnitude, even if we stopped doing everything else - cleaning the streets, emptying bins, looking after parks, leisure centres and so on - we would still have to make cuts in services to the most vulnerable."