Council faces cuts to prevent £38.5m overspend

The councillor responsible for finances, Gwylim Butler, said the council needed to get its "act together"

Finance bosses at Shropshire Council have said they need to make "ruthless" cuts as financial projections show a predicted overspend of about £38.5m for the current financial year.

The overspend would wipe out most of the council's reserves.

The authority's scrutiny committee recommended the council looked at plans to further reduce its third party spending.

Finance portfolio holder Gwylim Butler told the committee: “We’ve got to get our act together with getting these savings delivered and the spending down.”

He added: “This [report] gives us a good front runner from the end of June to understand where this organisation is and hopefully will give us the time to pull it all back in.”

In July the council said it was set to cut its workforce by more than 10% in an attempt to help save £62.5m.

Shropshire Council head of finance James Walton warned cuts would impact on service delivery.

"Ruthless is the correct word in relation to overseeing and ensuring that the financial position improves over the coming months," he said.

'What are we doing?'

Mr Walton added: “We don’t want this taken out of our hands, so I’d rather we were harder.

"Scrutiny needs to understand, members need to understand and the public needs to understand that there is a consequence of not spending that money.”

Longden councillor Roger Evans said he was concerned the council’s budget was close to being out of balance.

“We seem to be drifting, drifting, drifting,” he said.

Mr Evans added: “The report shows the portfolio holders and their areas of finance, and every one of them is overspent, one of them by £14m. What are we doing at this council?”