While the £140m package includes many cuts, council leaders are keen to stress they want to work with other organisations to try to stop services from disappearing.

They say conversations are needed with other organisations, be it the health service or community groups, to ensure services survive.

An example is the proposed reduction of £400,000 in funding for school crossing patrols. The council, which funds and manages 114 school crossing patrols, hopes others could step into the breach.

Patrols, they say, could be run by community groups, schools or volunteers or sponsored by local businesses.

Steve Morphew, county cabinet member for finance, said: 'We want to see if there's another way of delivering those patrols. What we have these days are academies and free schools which are getting money from the government and we are putting pressure on them to take the patrols more seriously.

'We want to get in a conversation with them about whether they could deliver those services in the future.'

And, with the budgets for providing packages of social care for vulnerable adults set to be reduced, the council hopes other organisations will help to ensure people do not fall through the gaps.

Mr Morphew said: 'There is a broader challenge we need to rise to. What we do know is a number of those vulnerable people do touch a whole raft of organisations.

'We are pretty clear we do need to work together as efficiently as we can do. We have started talking to the police and to the city council about that.

'We know there's high demand in the city for mental health services and we need to have conversations about that with the council and with the mental health trust.

'Yes, we are looking to cut the budget, but I do not think that should be seen as the end of it. There's a lot we can do with other organisations to make things work.

'We need to have grown-up conversations with partner organisations about these issues.'