COUNTY councillors last night urged their leaders to find another way to save £10m amid a surge of protest against further cuts to social care.

A cross-party committee called on the cabinet to abandon a fifth of its proposed £50m budget reductions, including slashing support for carers, elderly day services, homelessnesses, children’s centres and bus subsidies.

More than 1,400 people wrote to the authority to express concern at the cuts and there was also an appeal from the charity Age UK.

But the scrutiny committee – which met for almost six hours – failed to agree on how the council should plug the black hole in its finances.

Suggestions included holding a local referendum on a council tax increase of 12 per cent next year, but this was branded “manic” and rejected after a vote.

The committee’s suggestions will now be considered by top councillors ahead of the county council’s decision on its budget for 2016/17 in February.

It came as the local authority’s most senior officer, Peter Clark, admitted he had “never known” the financial situation to be so tough.

Speaking at the meeting in County Hall, Mr Clark said: “The approach we have taken is to try to protect frontline services, but these have not been easy choices.

“In all my time in this council – which is more than 25 years – I have never known a time like it.

“We are now looking at savings that none of us ever wanted to make. But the requirement is that they must be made.”

The county council says it must make fresh budget savings of about £50m because of further cuts it expects to the funding it is given each year by the Government.

These would be on top of savings of £290m it has already planned between 2010 and 2018.

Protesters gathered outside County Hall ahead of the committee meeting yesterday, with campaign group Enough is Enough raising fears that savings in adult social care would “most affect the people who need support just to live their everyday lives”.

Spokeswoman Penny Thewlis added: “It will be a double whammy for carers, because they face cuts to their support and to the support for the people they are caring for.”

During the meeting Age UK Oxfordshire chief executive Paul Cann urged councillors to “stop this steamroller while we still can”, to a round of applause from people watching.

There were also pleas to the council from service users of HIV support services, such as the Terrance Higgins Trust, not to cut funding, and a coalition of Oxford homelessness support charities said they feared for their future.

Lesley Dewhurst, chief executive of Oxford Homeless Pathways, told councillors that, overall, homelessness groups stood to lose 65 per cent of their funding.

She added: “The homeless people we support have increasingly complex needs. Cutting support will just cause pressure on other budgets, like the police and health services.

“With this level of cuts, we cannot survive.”

Of more than 90 savings options suggested by the Conservative-controlled county council, the scrutiny committee said 17 should be reconsidered if it could find other ways to save cash.

Their decision was heavily influenced by recommendations from council directors, with adult social care boss John Jackson adding that all the cuts were “deliverable” but that he was “most uncomfortable” about cuts that were set to affect carers and dementia intervention services.

Committee chairman Liz Brighouse, leader of the Labour opposition group, said after the meeting: “We have given people the opportunity to have their voice heard and that is really important.

“These issues are very difficult though. I still do not think the public would vote for an increase in council tax.”

The meeting came as the Government announced it would keep the council tax threshold for a local referendum at two per cent, and offer councils four-year settlements instead of yearly ones.

Local Government Secretary Greg Clark also confirmed the block grant given to councils would be phased out by 2020, with them instead raising cash through business rates and council tax.