OUR work at the council is still dominated by our efforts to present a balanced budget by the end of February.

By law we cannot produce a budget with a deficit and the borough’s senior finance officer is required to confirm that the proposals are realistic.

We need to find £19m savings next year on a budget of £137m.

But at the start of November last year, when we published our consultation draft, we still had a £2.7m gap.

Now we have two problems. Our first task, along with officers, is to work out how best to preserve services while finding these savings. This is tough because not only do we have to find £19m for the 2016/17 financial year, but we will have to do the same for 2017/18 and 2018/19.

At the same time, just a few of the budget proposals have provoked a strong reaction.

And this means that we are now spending a lot of time in working to address those concerns.

This means diverting senior officers’ time away from finding solutions to the overall challenge over the next few years.

As councillors, we have a legal duty to pass a balanced budget and we have responsibilities for all the services, not just the ones we use or interest us the most.

We are looking at not just this year’s budget but we are also working hard to ensure that the council is viable in years to come.

Above all, none of us stood for election to the council just to make cuts in the services which are provided.

But, as councillors, we have to accept responsibility for running the entire local council.

Before I got elected it was all very much simpler for me.

As a parent, I was concerned primarily about my children’s education.

I did not have to worry about how the council provided the best possible care packages to the growing number of elderly people in our community.

I also did not have to take any responsibility for the safety of any other children who live in in the borough.

And I did not have to take responsibility for those children who needed to be protected from any form of abuse.

But the clock is ticking. Without sounding too much like science fiction, the time prior to the council’s budget meeting will disappear very rapidly.

For all the calls for more consultation, delays, and rethinking ideas, as councillors we cannot shirk our legal duty over the budget and the looming deadline.

At the moment, there is only one set of proposals in the public domain, those of the Cabinet. I would welcome the chance to debate any alternatives.