THE budget gap facing Somerset Council in the next financial year has been reduced from £101 to £73 million but the authority was still ‘staring down the barrel’ of bankruptcy, councillors have been told.

It follows the issuing of three statutory recommendations, or ‘red cards’, against the council by auditors Grant Thornton which said the authority needed to move faster to change the way it delivered services.

Auditor Barrie Clarke said there were ‘significant weaknesses’ in the council’s finances, including its reliance on one-off support from central Government.

Mr Clarke said two of the ‘red cards’ concerned ‘financial stability’ issues which were also raised last year.

The council’s audit committee warned the authority may have left it too late to turn things around, making effective bankruptcy increasingly likely.

Interim chief financial officer Clive Heaphy previously said the authority would for a third consecutive year require ‘exceptional financial support’ from the Government in order to balance its books without totally exhausting reserves.

Mr Heaphy said the council was making progress, working hard, and focusing efforts to move toward a balanced budget.

He said: “We are trying to reduce our dependence on exceptional financial support, nobody likes it.

“It is like putting the food bill every week on the mortgage, it is not something you should be doing.”

But Cllr Gwil Wren, from Milverton, said the council was ‘staring down the barrel’ of effective bankruptcy and criticised a perceived lack of urgency by officers to address the problem.

Cllr Wren, who chairs a scrutiny committee, said: “If you go through the actions in relation to the three statutory recommendations, they are all a bit bland and woolly.

“There does not seem to be an awful lot of urgency.

“It is fairly clear we are going to have exceptional financial support for next year.

“The communities budget has effectively been hollowed out, there is nothing left.

“There is continuing pressure on children’s services and adult services, and our ability to close the gap just does not seem to be there.

“It feels like a lingering death, we are gradually sinking.

“We have had so many staff losses, I am beginning to question our ability to manage our way out of this situation.”

Chief executive Duncan Sharkey said the concerns were not confined to Somerset, but admitted ‘capacity is an issue’ in implementing change without hampering the delivery of front-line services.

Mr Starkey said: “Transformation always looked like a three or four year objective in terms of having sustainable budgets.

“All things being equal, I am fairly comfortable we will be able to set a budget this year that still requires a level of one-off, exceptional financial support, but significantly lower than in previous years.

“It is possible for us to move at pace, but not to do everything at pace.

“We have an issue about capacity to implement multiple changes at the same time.”

Taunton campaigner David Orr told councillors there was no demonstration of how their budget gap for next year will be materially closed without further emergency support.