Tories under pressure as £6m 'black hole' emerges in high-risk budget

10.13.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 27th Oct 2007

Liberal Democrats are concerned about the effect of financial mismanagement on elderly and vulnerable people

Halfway through the financial year the Conservative County Council are admitting their high-risk budget passed in February is way off course - and that planned savings of £6m cannot be achieved.

Their "Integrated Change Programme", meant to deliver the savings, has gone horribly round, leading to one-third of it being abandoned. A report to the County Council's Cabinet in 24th October indicated that plans not to fill current staff vacancies would only reduce the potential overspend to £4.6m - which will have to be taken out of the council's already stretched reserves.

Cllr. Brian Hoare, Lib Dem Leader on the County Council, says: "We warned them at the time that they had gone for a very high-risk budget. The The Integrated Change Programme has caused a lot of unrest and demoralisation of staff. That is the reason that there are so many staff vacancies."

"What concerns me is not just how the Conservative will balance the budget for next year, but the effect that the high volume of staff vacancies is having on everyday services that the County should be providing now, particularly to elderly and vulnerable people."

ENDS