THE Chancellor's extra £1bn for local services was given a cautious welcome by authorities in the North-East and North Yorkshire said last night.

Local government minister Nick Raynsford said: "This is a package of measures designed to give extra funding and to help local authorities either to raise additional finance themselves or to mitigate the costs they might have to meet.

"That package comes to approximately a billion pounds from the Chancellor."

Mr Raynsford denied that the extra cash for councils was a "political fix" to keep rate rises down ahead of a General Election.

He said there had been an increase in local government settlements year-on-year.

"That is not short-term expediency. That is long-term commitment to local government," he added.

But Councillor Alex Watson, leader of Derwentside District Council and vice-chair of the North-East Assembly, said there were concerns that the rises were a "one-off".

He said: "On the face of it, it appears to be a good settlement which goes some way towards keeping council taxes down.

"The concern is that, with a General Election coming up, it's a one-off.

"We need to be pro-active in seeking assurances from central Government that this will really continue in the future."

Darlington Borough Council's corporate services director, Paul Wildsmith, said: "We're going to have to look at what this means to our services over the coming 12 months."

North Yorkshire County Council is facing some difficult budget decisions. John Weighell, leader of North Yorkshire County Council said: "At a national level, the Government has made some increases in funding.

"However, it is clear from the provisional allocations to North Yorkshire that by no means all of these will benefit the county council."

North Yorkshire County Council's cabinet member for corporate affairs, Carl Les, said: "We want to know how much of this money is coming to North Yorkshire - the devil is always in the detail.

"The Government recently announced it was taking £1m off the council after recalculating last year's revenue support grant - we want to know if we're getting this money back."