PENSIONERS, vulnerable adults and disabled teenagers all face being hit by the latest council cuts aimed at tackling a huge financial black hole.

Two community centres will be closed, home help staff will be offered redundancy, and the elderly will have to pay more for care in their homes, under the procaposals from council officials.

It comes after the city's children and families and health and social care departments were charged with saving £8 million this year.

The drastic measures were today condemned by charities and union officials, who said the council had its "priorities skewed".

The financial dilemma is partly due to the collapse of plans to close 22 schools and four community centres, which would have saved £9m over three years.

Two of those reprieved centres, Riddles Court and St Ann's, now face being closed to save a combined £1.6m without any consultation with the public.

Officials also want to save £3m by delaying planned capital projects, such as building new schools.

Councillors will be asked to approve the plans next week, which also include tighter controls on foster care and school transport budgets, a freeze on funding for voluntary groups, and community centre staff facing the axe.

Meanwhile, pensioners face paying out hundreds of pounds extra for home help services. Officials want to raise the maximum hourly charges by a third, from £9 to £12, for receiving assistance in making meals or doing the washing and ironing.

The proposals also include means-testing pensioners and disabled people who use day care services, and charging those who can afford to pay £5 a day.

In addition, the council would stop providing shopping, laundry or cleaning services to hundreds of residents by targeting care packages at just the most needy, and some home help staff would be offered voluntary redundancy.

A spokesman for public sector union Unison today condemned the cuts. He said: "These measures represent a failure to recognise the real costs of all these services.

"Increasing the cost for home help will mean pensioners digging into savings. There are no care packages that are not required - they are already rationed, and this is a tightening up of the rationing.

"We talk of the problems with antisocial behaviour, and one of the things that gels people together is a community centre. It's very sad news if they close. And reducing costs in foster care beggars belief - there is already a huge unmet demand in the city."

Across the council, recent budget predictions showed there would be a £25m overspend in 2007-8 without any cost-cutting - up from an initial figure of £10m.

The council was never under any legal requirement to carry out a consultation over the closures of the community centres.

CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
In the children and families department, officials have warned they would overrun their budget by around £5.3m without cost-cutting measures.

Officials hope to close the two centres and sell them by March next year - even though Riddles Court on the Lawnmarket is a 16th century, Grade A-listed building.

This would affect projects such as Teen+, which is run by SLEEP Scotland from St Ann's on South Gray's Close and deals with six people in their late teens with complex learning difficulties, such as severe autism.

Jane Ansell, director of SLEEP Scotland, said: "It would be impossible for the young people to move that quickly. The council may not have a duty of care to them but they do have a moral duty - they're part of our community."

The Work Education Association (WEA), which is based at Riddles Court, provides adult education for more than 100 people, who would probably otherwise not have access to it.

Joyce Connon, Scottish secretary of the WEA, said: "We are very keen that Riddles Court remains in situ until an alternative is found. Our distinctive role is the fact that we are a city centre provider for adult learners and we draw in people from all over the city."

Councillor Andrew Burns, the city's Labour education spokesman, criticised the administration for proposing to put back major projects without being able to say which would be affected.

"I'm not prepared to agree to a £3m slippage when I don't know what I'm agreeing to," he said.

Councillor Marilyne MacLaren, the city's education leader, said: "We clearly face a very difficult situation with the children and families budget, made even more challenging by events with the property rationalisation.

"We had already asked the department to provide detailed proposals for the council to consider and I look forward to leading the discussions in full council on the best way of ensuring we balance our books.

"Of course, the education and welfare of children in Edinburgh remains our top priority."

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
The cutbacks in health and social care would save nearly £2m, but would still leave an overspend of £874,000.

As a result, officials are in discussions with NHS Lothian over possible financial help, and may consider selling council offices.

The council's director of health and social care, Peter Gabbitas, has also urged councillors to reconsider controversial measures to close a care home and restrict the number of new care home places.

His department's original options were rejected by the administration, amid fears this would lead to a major "bed-blocking" crisis in the city, where elderly patients get stuck in hospital with nowhere to go.

Councillor Paul Edie, the city's health and social care leader, said the new options would be considered at group meetings next week. Lindsay Scott, a spokesman for Help the Aged in Scotland, said:

"The need for care is not a lifestyle choice, and the only assessment that should be done on pensioners is to find out their needs, not how wealthy they are.

"I'm gobsmacked that the council is considering contracting these services when they should be expanding."

Labour's health and social care spokeswoman, Councillor Lesley Hinds, said the measures would hit "the most vulnerable in society".

A decision to review services for people who only receive shopping, cleaning or laundry services would affect 764 people. The council estimates it would continue to provide help for only 30 per cent of these people who have no means of alternative help.

Jackie Sansbury, director of planning with NHS Lothian, said: "NHS Lothian notes the commitment made by the City of Edinburgh Council to explore ways of balancing their social care budget without impacting on our joint work to reduce the number of people kept inappropriately in hospitals." But she added: "We remain concerned that any cuts to care home services and care at home facilities will have a detrimental impact on this work."

Budget cuts at a glance
ELDERLY CARE

• Maximum charges set to increase from £9 to £12 per hour for home help services, such as preparing meals and ironing clothes, from November.
• A total of 764 individual care packages will be reviewed so that people who can afford to pay for shopping, cleaning or laundry services at home no longer receive the services for free.
• Voluntary redundancy or redeployment will be offered to home help staff.
• Introduction of charges for using day care centre services, with a maximum price of £2.50 for half-a-day. Currently, 334 people attend eight to ten sessions a week.

The charging scheme could be means-tested, or by introducing a cap of £15 a week.

Personal care - essential services such as hygiene and mobility - will still be provided free by the Scottish Government.

COMMUNITY CENTRES

• Riddles Court and St Ann's are to close, saving £1.6 million.
• A review to start immediately to look at ways of saving a further £850,000. The council believes this will lead to a reduction in posts, and a reduction in management and development costs, but will aim to protect frontline services.

SCHOOL TRANSPORT

• Buses and taxis that are provided for children who live more than two miles from their nearest school, attend a Catholic school, or are disabled, will be reviewed.
• A cross-departmental group will be launched to find ways of cutting £345,000 from the £5 million service.

FOSTERING

• Ways of reducing costs in fostering will be investigated as the number of children needing the service and the overall budget has been spiralling.