CYP Now - ANALYSIS: Children's services funding - Children feel the council tax pinch

Critics of councils such as Wandsworth - famous in the 1980s for its zero poll tax - claim children are losing out as local authorities cut services such as voluntary play provision to minimise rises in council tax. Gordon Carson investigates.

Wandsworth Council's decision to cut funding for a range of children's services - including a playbus, mobile toy library, minibus outings for disabled kids and voluntary sector holiday play schemes - has dismayed children's workers and unions in the London borough.

Wandsworth has its own unique set of circumstances, but its situation reflects wider difficulties faced by providers of "discretionary" local services as local authorities look to minimise increases in council tax rates.

Wandsworth gained infamy in the late 1980s for its zero poll tax. It has been under the control of the Conservatives for two decades and still boasts the second-lowest council tax rates in the country.

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