NEARLY £500,000 is to be axed from special services within Shropshire’s education budget in a savage bid to cut spending.

The cutbacks will hit programmes aimed at boosting results and those intended to improve children’s behaviour and reduce school exclusions.

Further cuts will hit moves to improve school dinners, reduce funding to homework clubs and hit vital work to reduce teenage pregnancies.

The package was revealed today, just 24 hours after Shropshire Council announced it needed to make £10 million savings to its budget this year.

The savings come on top of £47 million of savings planned for the next three years. They will dramatically change the way the authority operates with some services having to be offloaded to voluntary and private sectors.

Today a leading councillor warned of “hard choices” to be made and stressed the need for members and officers to work closely “to get through the next few years and out the other side” with core services still intact.

Impact

Among the immediate action the council will be forced to take will be savings of more than £477,000 to its education budget.

This will impact on raising achievement and keeping children in school instead of them facing expulsion, helping teachers learn additional skills, NVQ study support and behaviour improvement.

Savings of £166,000 have been identified within the youth service and a £68,000 reduction to homework club funding has been identified.

A further £42,000 looks set to go from a project to improve domestic violence refuges and cuts are proposed to teenage pregnancy prevention budgets and the healthy schools initiative.

The loss of £10 million grants and measures for tackling this will be discussed by the council cabinet next Wednesday.

Reports will also be presented on budget cuts for the following three years, £15.8m in 2011/12; £14.8m in 2012/13 and a further £16.5m in 20133/14.

Nigel Hartin, leader of the council’s Lib Dem group, said hard choices had to be made and the figures were “grim”.

By Dave Morris