'Everyone has to understand how difficult the situation is': Shropshire Council to assess 'minimum service provision' as financial crisis looms
Shropshire Council will assess a 'minimum service provision' after auditors highlighted "acute and immediate" financial issues.
The council was on Thursday (December 11) asked to approve a response to an external audit report from Grant Thornton examining its finances, which warned of "acute and immediate" financial problems.
The auditors had instructed the cash-strapped authority to assess the costs of providing only the services it is legally required to deliver.
It comes after the council declared a 'financial emergency' and requested tens of millions of pounds from the Government to prevent issuing a Section 114 notice (the local government equivalent of bankruptcy).
The auditors said the assessment would give the council an understanding of immediate cuts that can be delivered, and would replicate the actions needed if it does issue a Section 114 notice.
During a sober debate councillors heard that services will likely have to be cut, and that the urgency from the auditors had been "unusual" and "not a common occurrence", reflecting the severity of the council's position.
On Friday the council was expected to finalise its submission to the Government requesting tens of millions of pounds in exceptional financial support.
The debate also heard that auditors had found the council was "overly optimistic" under the previous Conservative administration in assessments of its plans to cut costs, with plans repeatedly failing to materialise.
Councillors were also warned that the report had "scared" a number of Shropshire charities, worried about the knock-on impact of council cuts.
Liberal Democrat council leader Heather Kidd said that the aim of the administration would be to protect what it can - and that it had made changes to the way budgets are prepared, to avoid the difficulties generated by previous 'over-optimism' which has left the authority facing a major black hole.
She said: "Much of the problem we have encountered so far with the over-optimism, which really relates to the savings that were in the red-rated section with no plans behind them, will not appear in future budgets and nor will amber.
"That is moving things forward from what we have learned from the past."
