A private care company is to slash the wages of carers responsible for the welfare of vulnerable people in the north-west because of Con-Dem cuts.

Worried carers wrote anonymously to the Star for fear of reprisals, saying the cuts would hit people "who cannot defend themselves."

Creative Support, in Cumbria, employs 80 care workers who provide daily assistance to vulnerable people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour.

Cumbria County Council pays Creative Support an hourly rate for the care provided for each person, but because of government cuts the allocation is being reduced from £20 an hour to £16.

The company is now passing on the cuts to staff. Wages are to be slashed, holidays axed by eight days and overtime pay for weekends and bank holidays abolished.

One care worker told the Star that some staff would lose more than £500 a month from their wages and that staff face losing an average of 27 per cent of basic pay.

"Other cuts to evening and weekend rates will leave some losing more than a third of their take-home income," the worker reported.

"This is completely unacceptable. The reduction in budget is a choice by national and local government based on money and not on need."

He said the employers were trying not only to "steal from the poor, but to target some of the weakest members of society - those who cannot defend themselves, those who depend entirely on the support of their carers."

The care workers are members of public-sector union Unison.

Local Unison representative Graham Carr said: "What does it say about our society if this important service is treated as something to provide as cheaply as possible?

"All of our members work in tough jobs where we already give up our own time. It feels like a kick in the teeth to be asked to do this for less pay and worse terms and conditions."

Unison has begun negotiation with the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition council in an attempt to lessen the cuts.

No-one was available to comment on behalf of the council.