AN extra £2m will be spent on minor improvements to roads around the county, as part of a last-minute cash giveaway in County Hall’s 2012 budget.

County councillors met yesterday to vote through the financial plans, which will cut another £37m from council spending over the next year on top of £54m axed in 2011/12.

Council tax will be frozen for a second year running, thanks to a one-off £7.5m Government grant.

Delivering his last budget as council leader, Keith Mitchell announced £5m more than planned could be spent because of new Government grants and higher than expected collection of council tax by the five district councils.

As revealed by the Oxford Mail yesterday, £1.6m will go on providing support for about 800 of Oxfordshire’s most troubled families in an effort to cut school truancy, drug and alcohol abuse, and antisocial behaviour.

An extra £600,000 has been added to the Big Society Fund, creating a £1m pot of cash for community groups to bid for to run projects in their neighbourhoods including youth clubs and sports facilities.

The council has also put £400,000 into its Every Child A Reader campaign to tackle the low levels of literacy among Oxfordshire’s schoolchildren, and £300,000 into improving standards of school leadership. And £350,000 will be added to the county’s £10m fund to improve superfast broadband.

But the biggest slice of extra cash will go on roads projects. The council has doubled the £1m budget from which councillors can fund small highways projects in their divisions, including vehicle activated signs, dropped kerbs, weed-killing and street lights.

Another £1m will be put into bigger projects to repair rural roads.

Mr Mitchell said: “We are still making £119m of cuts across all of our services up to 2015, and we are forecast to have made around half of those cuts by the end of the current 2011/12 financial year.

“So this must be seen as a relatively small, but very welcome, bit of good news in what is otherwise still a very tough environment for local councils and public organisations across the UK.”

Alternative budget proposals from opposition parties were rejected by Conservative councillors.

The Lib Dems had proposed extra cash for social care, maintaining transport to day centres, post office regeneration and English language tuition. The opposition also suggested allocating £1m to start work on plans for a new railway station at Wantage and Grove.

The Cabinet said the project was not a top priority, and accused the Lib Dems of electioneering.

The Greens were the only party proposing an increase in council tax of £40 per household, saying the money was needed to restore social care budgets.

Labour did not submit an alternative budget amendment, but said that they wanted councillor allowances to be halved. They said new mutual organisations should be set up to provide internal home support and learning disability services rather than buying in services from private companies.

lsloan@oxfordmail.co.uk