Although the council has only just finalised its revenue budget for next year and the £5 million-plus cuts that involved, officials are already looking towards the following year, which will be even more difficult.

In total, around £30 million of cuts will have to be made over the next four years, but 2011/12 stands out as the worst one because the £12 million savings are at least twice what will be required in any of the other years.

“On the basis of the information we have at the moment, 2011/12 is going to be even worse than the budget process we have just gone through,” Councillor Guild said.

“We will try to make sure that the burden does not fall disproportionately on any one particular department. We will seek to spread the load as much as possible and avoid damaging front line services.”

However, Mr Guild said social work, which includes child protection, was an area where the administration would do its utmost to avoid cuts and pointed out that additional money had been allocated to it for next year.

“In any case, it’s almost impossible to predict how much will be required for social work as many of the services it provides are demand led,” he said.

Child protection has come under the spotlight in Dundee with the death of tragic toddler Brandon Muir at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend.

Mr Guild said the £12 million of savings did not take into account any grant that might be available from the Scottish Government for keeping the council tax frozen in 2011/12.

In recent years, £70 million of central government grants have been available to councils across Scotland on condition that they did not increase the council tax.

Dundee’s share of that allocation has been worth around £1.7 million a year, but it is not known whether the grant will continue into 2011/12.

The city council has a long-standing policy of no compulsory redundancies and Mr Guild said that remained in place at present.

“In the current financial situation it is not possible to give a guarantee that will continue indefinitely, but we would only depart from it as a last resort,” he said.

Although he was loath to think the £12 million savings requirement for 2011/12 might turn out to be even higher, Mr Guild acknowledged the imminent General Election meant it was a possibility.

“No matter who forms the next Westminster Government, there is going to have to be a review of the public finances,” he said.

“If there are unpopular decisions to be made, they tend to be taken early on in the life of a parliament.”

He said that could have an impact on the money available to the Scottish Government and, by extension, to local government.

The managing director of cut-stricken Dundee Employment and Aftercare Project today revealed her fears that further council savings could again hit the service it provides in just 12 months’ time (writes James Williamson).

Her reaction came after it was announced the city council would need to save another £12 million from its budget in 2011/2012.

Last month DEAP had £170,000 of cash stripped from them as part of a raft of savings from the council’s allocation of Fairer Scotland Funding.

But boss Mary Hamilton today said she feared the spectre of further cuts on the horizon could hamper the long-term security of her service and the development of some of Dundee’s poorest areas.

The service has just submitted a bid to provide their employment service for the council, on a reduced, £100,000 and one-year contract as part of an open tender process.

Competing claims

“If we’re successful with this bid then it’s a very short-term investment and it doesn’t help long-term planning for the future and for our survival,” she said.

“Our bid is to carry the project for one year with the possibility of an extension for a further two years, but if there are further budget cuts, it may be that we are going to be affected down the line.

“I’d like to know where the cuts are going to come from? Are employment projects going to be affected again?”

Ms Hamilton said she knew the prospect of finding £12 million in savings across council services was a challenging one, with many competing claims on funding from council departments.

“Valuable difference”

But she added that projects like DEAP, and others affected by recent cuts in allocations from the Fairer Scotland Fund — including schemes like after-school clubs in the Hilltown — were vital neighbourhood services making a “valuable difference” in people’s lives.

“As far as employment is concerned, if they don’t reinvest, then that will harm the economy in the longer term,” she added. “Our work creates more jobs and makes people better off in the long term.

“The regeneration areas we work in need to be built up and have their economies developed or they’ll be in an even worse state in a few years time.”

While warning that it was “very early days” for Dundee City Council’s budget for 2011/12, leader of the city’s Lib Dems, Councillor Fraser Macpherson called on those of all political persuasions to work together to find a way to ensure that the foreseen cuts do not have a crippling effect on council services.

But he stopped short of calling for a raise in council tax to meet the funding gap, saying Dundee’s families were already hard pressed.