CARE for the elderly, libraries and leisure facilities all face further cuts after George Osborne handed out tax cuts yesterday at the expense of local council funding.

The Chancellor announced in his last Budget that central government funding for local authorities in England would be phased out. Instead he proposed to allow councils to keep business rates raised locally, a plan likely to short-change poor towns and cities.

But yesterday he robbed councils of this contingency funding by slashing business rates centrally.