COUNCIL chiefs are consulting on how to shave more than £1 million from their public health budget.

Last month, the government announced there would be a further £3 billion of spending cuts in the current financial year — including a £200 million public health grants reduction for councils.

Bolton Council’s public health grant was £18.7 million for 2015/16 and the cut of 7.4 per cent means there will be between £1.3 and £1.6 million lost from the authority’s public health budget.

Council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said he could not say which public health programmes were at risk but said every service was being studied to see where cuts could be made.

He said: “When we got our original budget we were short changed. Now we are being short changed again.

“It is about what commitment this government has in terms of prevention work.

“Prevention is very important — you might not be able to see it at the time, but five years down the line it kicks in — and we have been saying all along how vital it is.

“The council had already dealt with budget cuts and then to have this extra cut after the financial year has already begun is short-sighted.

“We had just started to narrow life expectancy gaps in the borough and we will have to watch that closely.”

The British Medical Association urged George Osborne to use last Wednesday’s budget to reverse the public health cuts — but the Chancellor did not mention them in his report.

Cllr David Greenhalgh, leader of Bolton’s Conservative group, said the government had been elected with a mandate of fiscal responsibility and to reduce the deficit.

He said: “The government spends in total around £7 billion a year on public health so the wider picture is this is a saving of £3 in every £100 in order to deliver these preventative services.

“There was an underspend in local public health budgets last year, and NHS funding remains protected.

“At times like this, it is very easy for Labour to oppose, but they did not propose to protect the public health budget in their manifesto, so where would their cuts have fallen?

“If we are to have strong public services in the future, we need a strong economy, and the deficit has to be reduced for the sake of generations to come.”