Northamptonshire County Council has announced revised budget savings after being warned by auditors to revise its spending plans.
The county has announced cuts of nearly £10m after KPMG had warned the county’s proposed budget was over-reliant on the use of capital receipts.
The new proposals include closing 21 small libraries, removing all bus subsidies, reducing the trading standards budget by 42%, freezing pay for staff during 2018/19 and reducing the highways maintenance budget.
Under the new recommendations, the use of capital receipts during 2018/19 has been reduced from £40.9m to £31m.
The council’s cabinet member for finance, cllr Robin Brown, said: 'Northamptonshire is at the leading edge of a financial challenge the severity of which local government has never seen before. It is a challenge all top tier authorities will face, but Northamptonshire has reached crisis point now.'
He added: 'These revised budget recommendations have been brought forward in light of the advisory notice issued by KPMG last week and include service reductions we had hoped to avoid but now regrettably have to bring forward in order to set a realistic and deliverable budget by March 1st.'
