Telford & Wrekin Council have announced that its cash grants will be cut by around £17 million over the next two years with £12 million of this cut falling in the next year.

The figures will leave the Council facing grant cuts over the next four years of around £25 million which the Council has been planning for some months.

However there is a much heavier front end loading than indicated by the Comprehensive Spending Review in October.

Nearly 50 per cent of the four year grant cuts are now falling in the next year alone.

The cuts are on top of cuts of more than £3 million suffered in the summer as part of the emergency budget.

Council leader Andrew Eade said: “We face some very significant challenges to make the savings we need, but we are well prepared to do so.

“We have been working extremely hard to put ourselves into as strong a position as possible to meet the challenges ahead. We are determined to do so while protecting frontline services wherever possible.

“Whatever was announced yesterday, the fact is that we face a 12 per cent cut in cash terms next year, which will pose a very real challenge. The reason we are in this position is because of the unprecedented deficit in public finances nationally.

“The figures have been made worse by the continued use of so-called damping. This means we see money that should through the funding formula come to people in Telford and Wrekin is once again being used to limit the impact of cuts in other parts of the country.

“For more than a year now, we have been working through a programme to review services across the Council and restructure our workforce, particularly at more senior levels and to identify new ways of delivering services at a lower cost. This will continue for some months

“For example, our review of senior management, completed last month has halved the number from 28 around two years ago to just 14, saving around £1.75 million a year.”

The Council will, over the next few days, analyse the settlement announcement in more detail, although some information on individual grants will not be know until the New Year.

At the end of this year, the Council will publish its budget proposals, with public consultation on the budget starting in early January.

Cllr Eade added: “We have been planning our priorities and considering how tax payers’ money can best be spent and, as our budget proposals come forward, I encourage all borough residents to get involved and tell us their views on where the Council should be using its reduced resources to protect key services. “

Residents can already have their say on what they think the Council’s priorities should be for money invested and savings made, through the Spend & Save Challenge.

This gives people who live in the borough the chance to say which services are their highest priorities. The online survey can be found at www.telford.gov.uk/spendandsave.

It will be followed up by a series of meetings with key community groups in the New Year and is just one of a number of ways in which Telford & Wrekin Council is gauging people’s views on the budget.