Haringey Borough Council’s leader has admitted she is “worried” about making millions of pounds of cuts to services.

The authority needs to save £70m in the next three years. This involves cutting £18.3m from adult services and £17.3m from children and young people.

Councillor Claire Kober, Leader of Haringey Council, said that although she was determined to improve the borough, she was concerned about the effect of the cuts on vulnerable people.

She said: “In lots of ways councils are social care organisations, we support people who are facing challenges who perhaps have difficulties to contend with in their lives and therefore in cutting budgets in councils you remove services and resources from people who really need them.”

She added: “I worry about children and adults who use our social care services. Whether that’s day care, or people who are currently in residential homes, for whom that is their home, and those who use other services they provide.

“But as I say, there is not going to be a council in the country who can make these cuts without hitting those services because that’s where out money is.”

“I think I feel angry on behalf of residents. I would understand why, if I had a relative in a care home  - I can understand why they would feel both anxious and angry.

“I think my job is to work to ensure that we come up with the least worst options, the best possible options, and that we also take very seriously our responsibility to make the place better.”

The budget outlines the closure of day centres and a funding cut for youth services, which Cllr Kober said are to move their focus from “leisure activities” to concentrate more on early help, reducing teenage pregnancies and building skills.

There will also be a move away from residential care homes with increased emphasis on care in the community.

Cllr Kober admitted that there is “not really an upside” to closing day centres for adults.

She said: “There’s a bunch of stuff that we would not want to do but things we have to face given the budget situation and to which there is not really an upside so there are proposals around closing day centres for adults, that’s going to be very, very difficult.

“We’re looking at what we can do to re-provide those services. They’re not proposals we would be putting forward were we not faced with the budget situation we are.”

The council says it will now focus more on working with existing community organisations to provide services, but Cllr Kober said the plan was not to put forward “some Big Society-esque ask of people”.

She said: “I’m absolutely determined that in 2018 Haringey will be a better place than it is today.”