A quick reference to the key points from the Government's spending cuts, and how they may affect people in North Yorkshire:

• About 490,000 public sector jobs likely to be lost

• Council cuts of 7.1 per cent a year for the next four years

• Average 19 per cent four-year cut in Government department budgets

• £7bn in additional welfare budget cuts

• Police funding cut by four per cent a year

• Retirement age to rise from 65 to 66 by 2020 • No cuts in English schools budgets

• NHS budget in England to rise each year until 2015

• Regulated rail fares to rise three per cent above inflation

• Bank levy to be made permanent

York ‘well placed to survive cuts’

YORK is better equipped than other cities to cope with public-sector job cuts, a think-tank believes.

Despite having a high proportion of its workforce employed directly or indirectly by the state, many of its state-funded jobs are highly skilled, according to the Centre For Cities.

This puts it in the “professional public-sector cities” category, along with Oxford and Cambridge, and means its workforce is likely to be needed, or would find it easier to find alternative work should they lose their jobs.

York has 34 per cent of its workforce in the public sector, placing it in tenth position nationwide.

The most vulnerable places to public-sector cuts are Barnsley, Swansea and Newport, the think-tank believes.

GP’s reaction

Dr Brian McGregor, York GP and vice-chairman of the local medical committee, said: “The health sector is a lot better off following this announcement than several other public services, such as the armed forces and the police, which are having to take huge hits. The cuts we will be taking relate to inflation, which we will have to absorb.

“New treatments are always expensive and new ways of paying for them will have to be found, and although we have been protected, we are not getting any extra funding so we will have to look for savings if we want to provide the full range of services and make sure we spend every penny sensibly.”

Rural issues

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will have its budget cut by 29 per cent over the next four years, but flood defence spending is to be protected to some degree.