Tories under pressure as budget savings fail.

12.01.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 27th Oct 2007

Half way through the financial year the Conservative County Council are admitting that their high risk budget passed last February is way off course and that planned savings of over £6 million cannot be achieved. Their Integrated Change Programme which was meant to deliver the savings has gone horribly wrong and one third of it (Professional Support Service) has been abandoned.

A report to the NCC cabinet on the 24th October shows that alternative savings, mainly through staff vacancies have been made to reduce the potential overspend to £4.6million. This money will have to be taken out of the council's reserves.

Councillor Brian Hoare, Lib Dem Leader says; "We warned them at the time that they had gone for a very high risk budget. 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.