THE Northern Echo has always maintained that the Government's austerity cuts have hit this region the hardest.

We accept the argument for sensible budget reductions as a means of helping to reduce the national deficit, but only if the pain is shared equally across the country.

Clearly, that has not happened. Local authorities in the North have been left to grapple with crippling cutbacks while councils in the affluent south have escaped relatively lightly. While the rest of the English regions have had their resources cut by £4.5bn in the past few years, authorities in London and the South East have enjoyed a £235m increase.

Today's report by the National Audit Office (NAO) confirms what we have long suspected: that the Department for Communities and Local Government has no idea how devastating its cutbacks have been to local services.

The cuts are affecting everyone, but particularly the most vulnerable. Libraries, transport services and home care are easy pickings for authorities looking to make cost-savings, but slashing their funding has a disproportionate impact on older people.

Councils, which have seen their budgets savaged year after year have been too busy fire-fighting to stop and consider how they could provide services more cost-effectively.

But the NAO warns that we are reaching a tipping point. More than half of all councils face a serious risk of failure within the next five years - and if a local authority collapses what happens then? Will we see a wave of municipal bankruptcies, like in the US where cities such as Detroit have sought court protection from their creditors?

Whichever party wins the next election there will be no respite. Councils have to start planning now for an even tougher future. That will mean innovating rather than salami-slicing budgets, working together for the common good, better targetting services and finding new ways to reduce future demand.

It will not be easy, but one thing is certain: local councils should expect no help from central Government.