Borough chiefs have approved a plan to cut nearly £600,000 from budgets this year.

On Monday, Richmond Council’s cabinet agreed to reduce expenditure in many areas - mostly in the area of children’s and young people’s services - in response to corresponding Government cut backs.

The borough’s area based grant for educational purposes was to be cut from £3m for the current financial year and Richmond Council has responded by reducing spending on items including Connexions, the youth careers and advice service, the teenage pregnancy advice service and children’s social care and substance misuse programme by about £590,000.

The executive also approved to cut teacher training and support programmes and decided against funding a graduate internship programme from the authority’s reserves.

Councillor Stephen Knight, deputy leader of Richmond Liberal Democrats, described the cuts as “brutal and short-sighted” but Councillor Geoffrey Samuel, Richmond Council deputy leader, said many of the items being cut were “peripheral” to academic education.

Coun Knight said: “This is a policy that will not only quickly backfire and ruin the lives of many young people, but also incur extra costs for the Council in the longer term.

“These services are very important, and are one of the reasons why under the Liberal Democrats Richmond Council was in the top ten for children’s services in the country.”

Coun Samuel said if the Government cut something and the council put it back in it would count as a “growth item” that would affect long-term budgets.

He accused Coun Knight of being a “deficit denier” and said there were numerous demands on any underspends and money in the reserves.

At the meeting, the authority also approved a revamp of the recycling system to collect extra items and a restructuring of departments set to result in the loss of 32.9 posts that will save £1.4m.