COUNCIL services across Oxfordshire will be hit after the Government slashed millions of pounds of grant funding for the year, County Hall warned last night.

Oxfordshire County Council has been told it has to make £10.8m of savings from the 2010-11 financial year, and said it could affect jobs and services as well as major projects.

The news comes just days after the council announced it was to review £500m of capital projects due to take place over the next five years.

Last night Unison Oxfordshire branch secretary Mark Fysh said: “Day to day service delivery means frontline services are going to be affected and I have great concerns over the coming couple of years for thousands of jobs.

“Unison will work with the county council to make sure we can do things smarter and, where we can, cheaper. But if there are cuts to frontline services – such as education and health – we will fight them.”

County council leader Keith Mitchell said the mid-year cuts were “unusual if not unique”.

He said: “Our forward planning in deciding to set savings for coming years will come into its own next year and in following years.

“However, in the short-term we must find extra savings to cope with this need for the Government to make quick savings straight away and make inroads into the enormous national debt.

“We must now work hard on how we will manage these extra cuts and we will try to do that with alacrity so that we can bring some certainty both to our operations and our service-users for the rest of the current financial year.”

The cuts represent just over one per cent of the council’s £970m annual budget.

Council spokesman Paul Smith said the cuts would “absolutely” have an impact on the day-to-day services the council provides.

He said: “Any impact on jobs would be inextricably linked to the nature of the decisions that will be taken on how this extra £10.8m is saved.”

No indication has been given as to where the axe will fall.

David Buckle, chief executive at Vale of the White Horse and South Oxfordshire district councils, said the Vale would have to find about £200,000 of savings, but South Oxfordshire had not lost out on any grant money.

He said: “We have a £200,000 hole in the budget, but with 10 months until the end of the financial year I am not going to lose any sleep over that.”

Bob Price, leader of Oxford City Council, said Oxford would lose out on funding but the exact amount would only become clear in the coming weeks. He said: “This is the first step along the road and we expect there will be a lot more cuts coming.”