COUNCILLORS in Worcestershire are urging Chancellor George Osborne to protect the fire service - amid fears its funding could be slashed further.

November's Government Spending Review will see public services in line for more funding reductions, with experts suggesting unprotected areas face cuts of up to 27 per cent.

Councillor Richard Udall, who leads the Labour group on the Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Authority, says Mr Osborne should leave the service alone.

Ministers have pledged that the NHS, overseas aid and defence will be increased and school funding protected, but outside of that large reductions of £11.3 billion are planned by 2019.

Councillor Udall said: "The Chancellor's decision to request huge cuts in public spending over five years will have a dramatic impact in our area.

"Some 80 per cent of our expenditure is on pay and pensions, we cannot make such drastic cuts without significant job losses, fire station closures or removal of front line services.

"Such cuts will put the public at risk - as a fire authority we can no longer pretend that such deep cuts will not impact upon our front line service.

"The fire service is not a protected service and it needs to be, we need protection from cuts in order to protect the public."

The chairman of the fire authority, Councillor Derek Prodger, said: "Financially we're doing ok, there's a balance in the budget and we've had to make a lot of redundancies.

"We've sorted out the back office, stripped lots of it out and we'll always be looking to be more efficient where we can and make savings.

"I'm hopeful we will be ok."

Mr Osborne is set to focus on increasing capital spending, money on infrastructure like roads, while slashing day-to-day Whitehall departmental costs.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is estimating capital spending to rise by nearly £5 billion, or 11 per cent, and departmental funding to decline £11.3 billion in real terms by 2019, five per cent.

But the pledge on protecting certain areas means local government cash, such as money to fire authorities, faces the brunt of it.

IFS senior research economist Rowena Crawford said: "We already know there will be significant further spending cuts.

"The Chancellor has asked unprotected departments to model cuts to day-to-day spending of 25 per cent and 40 per cent over the next four years."