Ouch! The pain is going to be felt across Shropshire, writes local government correspondent Dave Morris.

And there will be little relief as Shropshire Council looks to make funding cuts of almost £60 million over the next three years in the face of a severe Government squeeze on public spending.

Along with seeing grants slashed or axed, council bosses have also been told by Westminster that there must be no council tax rises and this will deprive the Shirehall coffers of further millions.

What we are lacking at the moment is the fine detail of where cuts will be made, but everyone is going to feel the pinch, some more than others. To think otherwise is foolish.

Council chief executive Kim Ryley told me the position will become clearer on October 20 when the Government announces the results of its comprehensive spending review which will set out firm and fixed three-year departmental expenditure limits.

The council already knows things are going to be extremely tough and is trying to position itself well ahead of the game. For example, next Wednesday its cabinet will be asked to consider initial cuts of £10m it is required to make quickly this year as the result of losing grants.

Cabinet members will also be asked to agree proposed increases in the fees and charges for a huge variety of services provided by the authority. Staffing costs too must be reduced and a major review is proposed of management roles and responsibilities.

There is no doubt that the face of local government in Shropshire is going to change dramatically over the next few years.

The council is going to have to scale back and reduce its workforce, but at the same time protect key services to the most vulnerable.

However there are many cultural, leisure and sporting services that it will have to seriously think of off-loading to other organisations and we can expect to see some radical proposals coming at regular intervals to cabinet between now and the end of the year.

Mr Ryley is warning that the authority is going to have to make some “difficult choices” about which services it provides.

He says: “With the help of local residents, partner organisations, and businesses, we can determine the most appropriate way to run these services in future, whether that is by the council directly, or through our partner organisations in the voluntary or private sectors, or by local people doing more themselves.”

We are about to enter a very interesting – and testing – time which is bound to affect every household in the council area.

And who said local government was boring!