PLANS to cut council tax for a fourth year running prompted an angry backlash from critics who claim Hammersmith and Fulham Council is getting rid of services used by the borough's most vulnerable.

Bills for the coming year will fall by another three per cent, with the average home paying £122 less than in 2006/07, when the Tories first came to power and began making cuts.

Many of the council's services have already been outsourced to private operators, and it is understood further savings are likely to come from concentrating council staff in fewer buildings. Offices in Riverview House, in Beavor Lane, Hammersmith, will be among the first to go in February next year.

Council leader Stephen Greenhalgh said: "Some critics have argued in the past that cutting costs is unpopular - this is nonsense. What we are doing in Hammersmith and Fulham is hugely popular with local residents.

"All councils have a duty to respond to the perfect storm of social and economic challenges caused by Britain's toxic debt mountain, which is fast approaching £1.4trillion.

"Britain is heading for bankruptcy unless we all start making radical changes that can truly deliver better services for less money."

The push to outsource the borough's services means rubbish and recycling collection and street cleaning are now carried out by Serco, grounds are maintained by Quadron, schools and council buildings are cleaned by Turners, and calls to the council are handled by a call centre near Manchester run by private operator Agilysis.

Highways and engineering, streetlighting services and repairs of non-residential buildings have also been contracted out.

Publicising the cuts this week, the council said it had reduced the number of 'bureaucrats' by nearly 600 posts over the last four years, or more than 1,000 if outsourcing is taken into consideration.

But the Labour MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush, Andrew Slaughter, said it was 'curious to boast about sacking 1,000 people in a recession'.

"These are not bureaucrats as they insultingly say," said Mr Slaughter, "They are mainly lower-paid local people doing jobs like home helps, school meals and street cleaning. Privatisation has not improved services."

A move to hand production of school dinners over to private firm Eden Foodservice provoked controversy last month, when it emerged members of the public were being recruited to transport meals to schools using their own cars.

The council's opposition leader, Steve Cowan, said: "This is the most controver-sial stealth taxing, front line service-cutting, self-serving administration in the country.

"While Labour is pledging to bring down all tax and charges, this Conservative administration has actually introduced over 500 new or increased stealth taxes during the last three years."

Public sector union UNISON claimed the cuts showed 'a frightening glimpse of the reduced public sector of the future' if the Conservatives win the next election.

Heather Wakefield, UNISON head of local government, said: "Self-imposed budget cuts hit vulnerable people hard. It means closure of day centres, charges for meals on wheels, and cuts to home care services. And in Hammersmith and Fulham it means making plans to tear down council housing, selling off land to developers."

The council has said it will guarantee a home in the area to anyone who lives in an estate earmarked for redevelopment.