A group which represents thousands of volunteer carers has reacted angrily to County Hall plans to reduce services for the elderly.

Members of Oxfordshire Carers' Forum said social services failed to consult them about proposals to tightly ration visits from care assistants, in the aftermath of a report calling for an overhaul of the way the department is run.

The forum's chairman, Tim Bryce, said there was widespread fear that care workers might have their hours reduced at a time of desperate need.

Mr Bryce said: "People who have been properly assessed and found to be in need of a care worker are already having help taken away. It's an appalling situation.

"What is disappointing is that we are a consultative body but we have not been consulted about these cuts."

Mr Bryce said further reductions came as a slap in the face for the 67,000 voluntary carers in the county, who helped save the council millions by looking after elderly relatives and disabled people.

A report commissioned by the county into how social services overspent by £4m was approved by the council's executive on Tuesday. The review by Care Consult, which itself cost £36,000, proposes that budget decisions should be taken lower down the management pyramid and urged investment in better computer systems.

Director of social services Mary Robertson said that providing a proper standard of care to needy people had been at the expense of tight financial management and warned: "We will simply have to say 'no' more often."

But community care rights adviser Margaret Coombs said: "It is not acceptable to make frail older and disabled people pay for budgeting errors. Social services do need to manage their finances more effectively, but not at the price of their duty of care."