CHILDREN'S services budgets have been cut so close to the bone they would struggle to cope with a Baby P or Rotherham sex scandal investigation, a councillor has warned.

Councillor Tom Bewick has warned Brighton and Hove City Council would find it extremely difficult to manage the costs of a serious review alongside its current under-pressure services.

He said: "We are in an insidious position where budgets are cut back so far to the bone there is not a millimetre of fat left.

"Frankly it keeps me awake at night the thought of a major child protection issue in the city.

"If god forbid, we were hit by Rotherham style child exploitation inquiry or a Baby P style case it would completely derail our attempts to live within our means and still deliver the best quality children and social services in the city."

The children's services department will make £5.7 million of cuts in 2017/18 including a massive reduction in youth services funding and the closure of the Playbus in addition to a further £6.24 million of savings to be made in the two budgets after that.

The council's lead for children's services said further savings were being explored in cutting management costs with the authority not ruling out sharing very senior management with other councils.

The former government adviser said he had asked officers to look into cutting management costs within children’s services which currently has more than 30 employees earning more than £50,000-a-year with 15 of those paid more than £70,000-a-year.

He said it was a careful balance between making savings and paying wages that would attract high-quality professionals to work for the council and allow them to settle down and start a family in a city with such high housing costs.

He said: "I’m not criticising professionals that we have got who are well paid but when you are having to make unpalatable decisions in the face of unprecedented cuts from central government, we will leave no stone unturned to try and drag out these required reductions in spending."

Cllr Bewick said he did not see it as a "no go area" for the department to follow the example of backroom services such as ICT, finance and HR involved the Orbis shared services partnership with Surrey and East Sussex.

The Labour councillor said there was already a trend in fostering and adoption becoming more regionalised and work on how the authority could "more radically" work across municipal boundaries with neighbouring authorities would be explored over the next year.

Cllr Bewick said he viewed his department's budgets with the gaze of a businessman, he runs skills company New Work Training from Sussex cricket ground, but found no area hiding massive inefficiencies or funding pet projects.