Councillors from across parties have demanded they are involved with the council’s budget at an earlier stage in years to come.

Details of the authority’s budget, which includes proposals to increase council tax by 3.49 per cent for the coming year, were revealed on Thursday, February 14 but will not go to formal consultation before they are voted on at a meeting of the council on Thursday, February 21.

Councillor Anthony Pollock, the executive member for finance, said: “We’ve done whatever consultations we are going to do.

“We keep things under review. There are some areas which might benefit from a bit more of a dig but ultimately it’s the administration’s responsibility, the ruling group’s responsibility, and that makes it difficult to involve the opposition. They’re there to throw rocks at us.”

Councillors from the Conservative group, Liberal Democrats and Labour had suggested on Monday (February 11) that they should be involved with the overview of the council’s financial plans months before proposals are announced.

Labour councillor Rachel Burgess said: “I think we definitely should be scrutinising the in-year position but I also think we should be looking at the process for setting the budget the following year.

“If you look at the Northamptonshire case, some of the scrutiny was expressly criticised there and they were saying you should be getting involved much earlier.

“You come to September and you can see what are the key risks, what are the opportunities, getting involved with the process for the following year, not just looking at what’s happening in year.”

Speaking at the council’s community and corporate overview and scrutiny meeting on Monday, chairman of the committee and Conservative councillor Guy Grandison, joined calls for councillors to get involved with the budget sooner.

He said: “This is what I would like to be doing going forward – I’ll probably have my ear bent by the ruling group but that’s not the point.

“The point of this committee is to basically overview and scrutinise what this council is doing.”

After the meeting Liberal Democrats councillor Clive Jones told The News: “When Lindsay (Ferris, councillor and leader of the Liberal Democrats) and I went to a local government association seminar we were the only council of 30 who did not start their overview and scrutiny in October and November.

“I think it is political. The Conservatives have just not wanted to discuss the budget.

“They (the ruling Conservative group) don’t see it as being something backbench councillors should be interested in. They are treated like mushrooms.”

But responding to calls for more cross-party involvement, Cllr Julian McGhee-Sumner said: “We’ve consulted with the opposition. Any councillor that wants to get involved can get involved.

“I want to get away from this Punch and Judy politics and scoring points. Councillors can ask questions anytime. Before I became leader, before I joined the executive, if I had an issue on finance I would just ring Anthony and say ‘can I come and see you, I want to talk about this that affects our residents’.”

Graham Ebers, Chief Finance Officer at WBC, was asked for his views on the budget-setting process at the committee meeting on Monday, February 11.

He said: “Authorities up and down the country have different approaches which includes different levels of public exposure to the options, ideas, proposals, different levels of public engagement.

“In an ideal world, there’s maximum transparency, collective ownership of the budget in order to understand the challenges, and collective ownership the impact of what is presented.”

“There are approaches, methodologies, ways to go about doing things. That’s fine, we can look at how other authorities do it, you can give recommendations.

“Then I think there is the other bit about the sharing of the development of intentions and investment ideas and saving ideas. They are owned by the party that is undergoing those and it is not in my gift to share those more broadly unless I have the agreement to do so.

“That’s the same up and down the land. There’s process, procedure, methodology and how we go about things and then there’s the detail at which we look at it.”

Councillors will give their views on the spending and savings plans at a meeting on Thursday, February 21, before when the council votes on the proposals.