MEDWAY Council chiefs are warning that some services may have to be cut as the authority's budget overspend reaches record levels.

The council is blaming a £6.4 million overspend on repeated cuts in its basic grant from government.

The first to feel the cuts will be the many agency staff employed by the council.

Cllr Alan Jarrett (Con), the council's deputy leader, said staff jobs and national wage agreements may have to go as they strive to tackle a worsening situation.

Cllr Jarrett said Medway received less government funding per head of population than most councils and he feared the deal being worked out for the next financial year will be even worse.

Cllr Jarrett said: "Walsall Council receives £465 per resident, while Peterborough City Council gets £405 compared with Medway Council which gets just £284 to spend per resident. And if we got the same deal as Nottingham, Medway would receive an additional £60m a year.

"We have been able to protect front-line services up until now but we are now facing some really difficult decisions.

"We must protect those services that we are legally bound to provide to the most vulnerable in our society - older people, children and people with disabilities - but there are many other services that are also important to our residents which may have to be cut."

"We are already looking at every area where we can save money but we have reached the limit where the lack of funding is inevitably going to impact on residents."

He announced a new campaign to persuade the Government to recognise Medway as a special case.

Brian Kelly of the local government union, UNISON, said his members were closely monitoring the situation, but considered staff were bearing the impact of bad management.

He said they would consider a ballot for strike action if it was proposed to end national agreements.

FULL STORY IN THIS FRIDAY'S MEDWAY MESSENGER