Tonight is Walsall Council’s Annual Budget Meeting. Given the financial mess the country has been left in after 13 years of Labour Governments, this years budget will probably be the most difficult that the council has had to face.

It will be even more difficult than the one back in 2000 when, after a period of disastrous Labour administrations which saw balances reduced from £42million to virtually £zero, Walsall Council was adjudged to be the worst in the country.

The good news today is that the budget being proposed by the controling group on the coucil will show a zero council tax rise. This is because the Coalition Government is forcing councils to do away with council tax increases this year to help people through the tough times ahead.

The downside of this is that Walsall’s controlling Tory Administration has been slow off the mark getting its act together redesigning the way it delivers its services and has had to resort to old fashioned “salami slicing” service cuts in order to save over £17million to bring in the zero council tax rise. This will inevitably impact on front line services.

Liberal Democrat councillors will tonight be putting forward the use of a small amount of the council’s reserves, but still keeping them within the financial guidelines, in order to cushion the effects of the cuts to those across the social gradient who will be most affected. Groups such as young families struggling on the “average wage” and the elderly struggling to meet ever rising energy and food bills.