Protesters today stepped up their campaign to stop 3m worth of council cuts.

Oxford city councillors have run out of savings and have drawn up a list of possible cuts from the 2001/2002 budget. However, it will cost 500,000 in officers' time and hiring consultants to earmark and implement the cuts.

Measures could include transfering council work and jobs to the private sector, increasing park and ride charges and concessionary fares, reducing parking spaces and cutting spending on community centres.

Staff could face the axe across all city council departments and even Oxford's Citizen's Advice Bureau is under threat. The proposals were being discussed at a meeting of the strategy and resources committee today. Decisions could be referred to full council on Monday, November 27.

At the weekend, supporters of Scrap, the campaign to stop cuts and privatisation, gathered names in Cornmarket Street for a petition condemning the plans. And before today's meeting, protesters demonstrated outside the town hall.

Scrap chairman Martin Gregory said: "We need things like cheaper fares for pensioners, environmental health officers and the Citizen's Advice Bureau."