Cost-cutting proposals at crisis council 'will mean poor services'

Elected mayor Peter Davies has drawn up a budget which would see bills fall by three per cent, or 32 a year on a band D home, in a quest to save 40m in the next four years.

But yesterday senior councillors said they would not support the move and instead called for a 2.95 per cent increase in tax.

Doncaster Council's overview and scrutiny management committee is supposed to examine the mayor's policies and make recommendations on whether they are pursued.

Yesterday's meeting of the committee voted to tell the mayor his budget was "totally unacceptable" in light of the council's well-publicised difficulties over safeguarding children.

Coun Joe Blackham, the Labour group leader and a member of the committee, said the council had "no choice" other than to increase council tax to pay for services.

He added: "To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the people of Doncaster. The mayor's plan is nonsense from first to last and I will not support a three per cent cut.

"It has no basis in reality and is a political gesture. Are we serious about safeguarding children and serious about delivering services? If we are we have only got one choice."

Independent councillor and committee vice chairman Tony Brown, who criticised the mayor's plans in the Yorkshire Post on Monday, echoed Coun Blackham's views.

"This budget is giving 40p a week back to a band A house," he said. "It's like saying 'have an ice cream every week' without worrying about the cow or who looks after the cow.

"We already know the future is going to be bleak, and we already know through our previous experience that low council tax means poor services. It's time to take a realistic view.

"This budget is madness, its insanity. Let's get real instead of giving everyone an extra ice cream."

It is understood there is also deep disquiet about the budget among senior authority officers. Steve Mawson, the council's interim head of finance, admitted the mayor's plans to cut 40m starting with 5m this year, 15m in 2011/12 and 10m in each of the next two years may be "difficult for the authority to deliver".

The council's former chief executive, Colin Jeynes, spoke out against the budget proposals at the beginning of the meeting, during time set aside for public questions.

"The council's chief finance officer thinks that the proposals for 2010/11 only 'may be' capable of being delivered, so he has covered his back, but not the council's," he said.

"He must be pressed on this, because if he cannot stand up at this meeting and say that the mayor's budget will stand up, you cannot vote to support the mayor's proposals."

Doncaster Council has faced sustained criticism, first over the deaths of seven vulnerable children and more recently over the Edlington attacks, which led to a public apology from officers.

Inspectors from the Audit Commission are poised to examine the workings of the authority, with a specialist team currently being assembled.

The council's interim chief executive, Tim Leader, also met with Whitehall officials earlier this month in the wake of the latest negative attention suffered by the council.

He told yesterday's meeting the Government had given senior officers a three-month deadline to turn the council's performance around, including making "intelligent, thought-through cuts".

The mayor was not present at yesterday's meeting.