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Unions protest about cuts to North Tyneside Council's budget, but who's to blame?

It's that time of the year when councils finalise their budgets.

So many political reporters are taking part in a kind of council cuts tour.

has been settling on its savings and Northumberland is deciding how to cut £50m from its budget.

has also been discussing how to save millions, and protests about cuts have been taking place in and County Durham.

Most councils agree that they are facing unprecedented reductions in the grants from government.

And Labour and Lib Dem councillors have been keen to blame Communities Secretary , and thereby the Government, for the situation they find themselves in.

.

He says there are plenty of back office functions and waste they can cut to ensure frontline services are protected.

Of course, we know many councils do not agree with that assessment.

Durham County Council - which has to save £125m (or around 30% of its budget) over the next four years - is considering moving to fortnightly bin collections.

It's also reviewing the future of some leisure centres and libraries, and taking money out of job creation projects.

You could not describe any of that as back office cuts.

And the county council's leader Simon Henig insists he has no choice given the lack of money, and the front-loading of the reductions in the government grant.

Don't Panic! Eric Pickles says councils should cut waste not services.

But the Government still isn't accepting that either. Ministers say a lot of the high profile cuts and bellyaching are coming from Labour councils who are more intent on political pointscoring than tackling waste.

Except of course there are Conservative councillors doing their share of bellyaching too.

Cumbria County Council leader Eddie Martin has facing his authority.

And it appears .

to get hold of a letter John Weighell sent to Eric Pickles last December after he announced the cuts to council grants.

He wrote: "The implications for North Yorkshire are potentially devastating and I believe that the settlement is unfair in the way that it treats the council, with serious consequences for frontline services."

Slightly inconvenient.

But this argument is not going to go away. The future for many Conservative council candidates may depend upon it when we come to the local elections in May.

For example, I know the Tories have made Darlington one of their top targets this time. They hope to win seats from Labour - maybe even control.

It's a council which is facing £19.5m in cuts over the next four years (or around 20% of its budget), and the Labour group has said cuts to the frontline are inevitable. They blame the Government.

So the task for the Conservatives will be to attack Labour for cutting the wrong way - targeting things which matter to people rather than eliminating waste.

This is an argument that will run and run, and in May all the parties will be asking us to punish those who they say are to blame for the cuts. But it'll be up to us to make up our minds about who we believe.

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