TWO trouble-shooters have been drafted in to try and end the cash crisis gripping Worcestershire's social services.

Chief executive Rob Sykes said the two former social services directors will spend one day a week in Worcestershire's County Hall department and will be available for consultation at other times.

Mr Sykes intervened last week after revealing that the department was heading for a £4.6m overspend, just five months into the new financial year.

Director of social services Peter Gilbert is currently on sick leave and his level of accountability for the cash crisis is being investigated.

Both consultant directors brief Government Ministers and are former presidents of the Association of Directors of Social Services.

Mr Sykes stressed that the pair would not replace the present staff, but advise on how best to make the savings and reshape the department.

The county council must make £600,000 of savings each month to ensure that the books balance at the end of the financial year in March.

Mr Sykes promised that details of those savings would be made public "within the next couple of weeks" after the health authority and social services staff had been briefed.

Meanwhile, he said other departments in the county council were being "carefully" scrutinised to see what savings could be made to help make up social services' overspend.

He said officers were currently trying to avoid redundancies.

"We are not at that situation yet and that's why we had to act quickly to ensure that we weren't," he said.

If the savings fail to claw back the funds, Mr Sykes said a Section 114 notice would be issued to the auditors and councillors.

"It effectively freezes expenditure for the whole of the county council," said Mr Sykes. "Certain activities would have to stop. "It would be very serious indeed. But we are not at that point because I have intervened now."

But he stressed there would be further "bed-blocking" as a result of the predicted £4.6m deficit.

"We are going to have to concentrate on the most needy and the number of people we are going to release from hospital are not as much as the health authority would like."

He added that he and chief executive of Worcestershire Health Authority Pat Archer-Jones would be asking West Midlands Regional Health Authority for "hundreds of thousands of pounds" to ease the "bed-blocking" crisis.