Council facing bankruptcy slashes jobs and services

A CASH-STRAPPED council last night approved plans to slash jobs and services in a drastic bid to tackle a £70 million funding shortfall.

Northamptonshire County Council, which is effectively facing bankruptcy, backed an action plan at a crisis meeting last night, with children’s services, road maintenance and waste management among the areas facing “radical” cuts.

Matt Golby, leader of the Conservative-run council, described it as “the most challenging thing me and my colleagues have ever been faced with”.

All but one of the Tory councillors backed the action plan, while opposition groups voted against it.

The next step in the process will assess the impact this has on its services.

Proposals that were discussed included an unspecified number of redundancies.

It came as the body representing England’s county councils said other authorities are likely to be forced to follow suit, with East Sussex already announcing it is scaling back services to a bare legal minimum.

Research released by the County Council Network (CCN) in June suggested that England’s 36 shire authorities face funding pressures totalling £3.2billion over the next two years, with just 33 per cent confident they will be able to produce a balanced budget beyond 2020/21.

County councils have seen their core funding from central government cut by almost 43 per cent over four years to just £161 a head in 2019/20 – compared to £460 in London – the CCN said.

Whitehall-imposed commissioners were sent in to run Northamptonshire earlier this year, after the authority revealed a projected overspend of £21 million for 2017/18.