ELDERLY, disabled and mentally handicapped people will have to pay 50p more a day for meals at council-run day centres under new government rules due to come into effect on October 1.

It will raise an extra £23,000 a year. But other changes to the cost of providing home care services will cost Medway taxpayers up to £800,000 a year after the government ordered numerous charges should cease at the end of this month.

Instead, three more bureaucrats are to be recruited to administer how much those on disability welfare should pay.

The council's Cabinet is angry about the plan. Members said it had been rushed in halfway through the financial year, without any thought to the implications.

It follows a Government order that the council - and others across Britain - should scrap charges for going to day care centres and making alterations to homes to make life easier.

At present it costs £2.20 a day - or £6.60 a week - for disabled people to travel to day care centres. The money raises £44,000 a year. The elderly pay nothing to travel, but are charged £1.15 for attending the centres. That brings in £20,000.

Minor adaptations to homes for occupational therapy reasons are charged at £32.85 - earning £21,000 - whatever the changes.

"Costs will really soar," said Cllr Howard Doe, the cabinet member responsible for community matters. "It is going to lose a large sum of money from an already struggling social services, and that makes me very angry."

He admitted he was being "hard nosed" about retaining as much income as possible for the department, and said the way it was being introduced by the government was indefensible.

Finance Cabinet member, Cllr Alan Jarrett, supported Cllr Doe. He said: "The health and community budget is already under tremendous pressure and this is merely adding to it."