MILLIONS of pounds of cuts to council services were agreed last night, but a “black hole” of more than £15m in county finances was still not addressed.

An emotionally-charged meeting of Oxfordshire County Council saw councillors stop midway through to hammer out a compromise on how they would make more than £69m of savings after a series of impassioned speeches from the public.

After hours of negotiations between parties, the deal reached saw the Conservatives unite with Labour and Liberal Democrats to pass a budget that temporarily held back £3m of cuts to elderly day services and £2m that would have been cut from early intervention.

The fate of Oxfordshire’s children’s centres and early intervention hubs was still unclear, however, with £6m still due to be cut over the next four years. It is understood discussions with different groups are under way about keeping more than 30 open by other means.

Meanwhile more than £50m of savings elsewhere were still pushed through, including cuts to funding for mobile libraries, the arts, road gritting and support for carers, and £15.3m more must still be found by 2020.

Labour’s John Tanner said it was “still a devastating budget” and the Green Party branded it “shameful”.

The umbrella group Enough is Enough – made up of charities, care providers and campaigners– hailed it a “victory for common sense” but said there were still “no winners”. Spokesman Eddy McDowall said: “The hard-won compromise is merely a smoke-screen and a chance to re-set the clock.”

The deal reached by parties meant the county council balanced its books for the 2016/17 financial year, but meant that next year the savings it will have to find have risen from £6.3m to £10.3m.

Council leader Ian Hudspeth said: “Today has been challenging. I am not sure any of us want to make these cuts.

“But we have to be pragmatic. Don’t be under any illusion that this is easy, because we will have to make some difficult decisions.”

Labour group leader Liz Brighouse added: “We need to keep doing more. I would like some discussion.”

As part of the changes to the budget, councillors also agreed to create a cross-party committee to decide how £4m of cash provided by the Government would be used to help voluntary groups take over some services. Another £5m from the same fund was used to temporarily stave off the cuts to children’s centres and elderly day services.

The cross-party committee will decide how cuts to areas such as bus subsidies and homelessness support can be eased over the next four years.

There will also be a review of councillor allowances and the number of cabinet positions, with the Liberal Democrats also securing their demand for a public consultation on whether Oxfordshire’s councils should be disbanded in favour of having a single, ‘unitary’ council.

A report by international audit firm Ernst & Young, published last year by the county council, said this would save £33m a year. Lib Dem group leader Richard Webber said this was the “only way” to make the savings the council needed in the long-term.

But David Williams, Green Party group leader, called the deal “a con”. The Greens proposed reversing the most controversial cuts by putting council tax up by seven per cent – which would have required a referendum, costing about £600,000. He said: “They ran away from facing up to the fact they need to generate more money and instead just rearranged the deckchairs on the Titanic.”