Police services welcome protected budget in government spending review

But he declared: “Now is not the time for further police cuts”. Miraculously, however, he still plans to stick to his overall target for welfare spending cuts – only other people will suffer and not as quickly.

But Coun Blamnire said: “Whilst the Government has unexpectedly backed down from making cuts in some areas, notably working tax credits and police funding, unfortunately that doesn’t apply to local government services”.

County council leader Carl Les said: “While we are always reluctant to raise council tax we will have to consider this step if we are to protect the most vulnerable in our society”.

It came following grim warnings of the impact further cuts would have on the ability of forces to respond to Paris-style terror attacks.

“Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020”. Instead, Osborne has made a decision to rinse an easy target for more tax revenue.

“The forecasts will change again, and by a lot more than they have over the past few months”, IFS Director Paul Johnson told a briefing in London Thursday. The Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent agency, estimated that public finances would be $40 billion better off than it had forecast in July.

But the thinktank said that cuts in spending will still “bear the brunt” of the effort to balance the books before the end of the Parliament.

“We took the hard decisions then”.

He said: “After five years the deficit has not been eliminated and this year it’s predicted to be over £70bn”.

George Osborne’s Autumn Statement for 2015 was a fairly eventful affair.

Two Croydon MPs have given their first reactions to George Osborne’s apparent U-turn on cuts to working tax credits.

The age of austerity is not over and around 2.6 million working families will lose an average of £1,600 a year under the UK Government’s welfare changes, according to Britain’s most respected economic think tank.

However, Mr Osborne said there would be a 50 per cent increase in investment in transport infrastructure to £61 billion, £2 billion for flood protection while the science budget would be protected in real terms.

The Chancellor’s spending review was widely welcomed as an “end to austerity” and a u-turn on the tax credit cuts that would have left 3.3m families £1,100 a year worse off.

Mr Osborne also announced new business taxes and an increase in stamp duty for buy-to-let landlords.

“The Met is highly effective at protecting the public, but we can still be more efficient and reduce our costs”.