THE Coalition Government has been at pains to stress that the aim is to protect front line services from the public spending cuts outlined by Chancellor George Osborne this week.

But, as we said yesterday, the devil is in the detail and the unpalatable truth is that it will be impossible for public sector organisations to avoid front line cuts in the face of £81bn of savings being identified.

It is the duty of those running those organisations to do everything possible to minimise the impact on our communities – but the demand for savings will simply prove too great.

The severity of the cuts will begin to emerge with increasing regularity in the coming weeks and today’s statement by Ian Hayton, Cleveland’s chief fire officer, is an ominous sign of things to come.

He anticipates a funding reduction of 25 per cent, leading to a shortfall of £8.8m over the next four years, equating to the loss of about 180 jobs.

And he makes it clear that those kind of job losses cannot be found from back office staff alone, with other fire chiefs in the region expressing similar concerns that front line services cannot be maintained.

The implications of losing any firefighters in a high risk area such as industrial Teesside do not need spelling out.

But these are cuts which run so deep that no amount of creative accounting can make ends meet without facing up to the harsh reality that even public safety will be affected to some degree.