COUNCIL bosses have unveiled a radical change to the way they set their budget, faced with the latest round of cost-cutting measures.

And they are now asking residents to help look after the elderly and keep the streets clean.

Instead of making efficiencies in each department each year until 2020, the authority says it will from now on focus on spending its money on five ‘priority’ areas.

These are: a growing economy, decent and affordable homes, good schools, better health and safe communities.

As a result, services not deemed a priority are expected to face swingeing cuts in February’s budget-setting process.

The Council’s latest set of proposals to save cash are expected to be made public in the coming weeks.

Previous years’ budgets have seen libraries become volunteer-run, foster care payments cut and community work scaled back.

The authority is also calling on people to “do more for yourselves”, by looking after their own health, keeping an eye out for older people and not dropping litter, for example.

Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of the Labour-run authority, said: “Since the Government began its austerity policy Bradford has risen to the challenge, with even the opposing political groups supporting the vast bulk of our budget proposals in recent years.

“These cuts have consequences for local people but nevertheless we refuse to let them dim our ambitions for the district.

“In the budgeting process we have focused on what we can achieve rather than what we can’t.

“We’ve focused on what matters to local people and what activities have the biggest impact. In this new era in which the Government is cutting its funding to Bradford, we need local people, businesses and partner organisations to take on new shared responsibilities to benefit the district.”

Councillor John Pennington, deputy leader of the opposition Conservative group, said: “To be fair, I think the Council does too many things for too many people and it is now finding it can no longer do so.”

He asked why, in this environment, the authority was spending money doing up City Hall, saying the cost of social care for adults and children was “running away, almost out of control”.

He added: “But we have to control it. We have to provide these services, so other things are going to have to suffer as a result.”

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