Pay rises to attract more local foster parents are proposed in an action plan to slash more than £4.5 million from Bradford Council's Social Services budget.

Drastic action to prune a huge predicted overspend will be considered by the Executive Committee on Tuesday. Most of it is caused by the huge costs of placing children in care in homes or high security units outside the district.

Bradford has cut the number of children's homes in recent years and has no facilities for the specialised care which some youngsters need.

And now a political row has erupted over the £4.5 million deficit the service faces at the end of the financial year in March. Labour says the Tories and Liberal Democrats have been "fiddling while Social Services burns".

But the opposition groups say social services departments across the country are overspent and are lobbying the Government about the problems.

Cost cutting proposals include:

l reviewing foster parents' pay and trying to encourage more people to come forward. This would reduce the costs of placing youngsters outside the district

l looking at the Council's existing system of charging people for social services

l reinforcing the policy of supporting older people remaining in their own homes or sheltered accommodation

l delaying any extension of home support packages

l chasing refunds from Bradford Health following judgment in the Coughlin case that health authorities should cover nursing home costs in some cases

l improving the system for getting places for children outside the district

l making more use of accommodation such as lodgings for young people, who would get support from Social Services.

Social Services director Liam Hughes will tell members the proposals are expected to slash £2.5 million off the overspend.

He says other measures already agreed mean the whole £4.5 million deficit will be met.

Mr Hughes says pressure on his department's budget has been caused by an increase of young people in care from 277 to 429 in the last three years.

There are serious concerns about child neglect and recent admissions to care have involved large family groups of children under 11.

And Mr Hughes says the population of people over the age of 85 is expected to rise by 1,500 over the next ten years.

Council policy has been to keep old people in their homes with packages of support from the local authority. But this can sometimes be more than the cost of older people going into homes, he says.

Deputy leader of the Labour group Councillor Barry Thorne said: "The Tories and Liberal Democrats have fiddled while Social Services burned. This Council is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on consultants producing glossy reports. But it is failing to deal with the really important issues."

Councillor Kris Hopkins, Tory Executive Committee member for health and housing, said: "Despite the pressures we are facing our staff are still providing an exceptionally high standard of service to young people."