Opposition councillors have been meeting with senior officers and for some issues with cabinet members to raise concerns about the coming budget and to look at possible savings.

At a meeting of Corp Issues and Scrutiny Board today it was pointed out that of the savings so far carried out by the council over the last few years 64% did not affect frontline services. On the one hand saving £72.8m without cutting any services is great, but on the other hand it does raise serious questions about just how much the council has been wasting over many years.

I believe that there are still savings to be made at DCC which don’t involve cutting frontline services and we will be outlining our suggestions to Cabinet in advance of budget meetings to see if they will accommodate any of our proposals in the budget.