THE stark reality of the unpleasant choices ahead for Torfaen council were spelled out today as its cabinet were told no areas of the budget were safe.

As we exclusively reported last week, Torfaen will have to find a further £40 million in savings over a four year period from the 2014-15 budget onwards.

Yesterday Nigel Aurelius, Torfaen's assistant chief executive (resources) brought his four-year plan for the council's finances to cabinet and told them in no uncertain terms he didn't feel any area of the budget would be protected.

Mr Aurelius said the council had made savings in the past by chipping away with efficiencies and cuts to a range of budgets while also still protecting the budgets for education and social services completely.

But he said: "I don't think that's sustainable going forward. We are spreading ourselves too thinly at the moment."

Mr Aurelius said that if both social care and education continued to be protected the council would have to find up to 25 per cent worth of cuts and savings across all the rest of its budgets affecting things like refuse collection and road resurfacing.

Mr Aurelius's comments had been echoed last week by Cllr Anthony Hunt, cabinet member for resources, who said he would be lying if he said he could guarantee no one would lose their jobs.

Mr Aurelius said he couldn't say exactly how tough the situation they were going to be facing was because "of the paucity of information of what unprecedented means coming from the Welsh Government."

He said his figures were primarily based on the idea that Torfaen's budget from the Welsh Government could be anywhere between one and three per cent less than its current funding deal Ideas outlined in Mr Aurelius' report included a continued focus on efficiency through things like better use of technology, establishing what is important to members in terms of what their residents wish to prioritise and importantly what could be given up or reduced.

The report also recommended reduce the standard to which some services were provided, making sure they were still acceptable but not at as high a standard as previously.

Cllr Hunt said: "It is a grave situation," and said central Government should "hang its head in shame" at the effect its austerity policies were having.

Torfaen facing 'tough times' - leader 

TORFAEN leader Bob Wellington gave a stark warning about the tough times the council faces.

With the further £40 million in further savings to find, he admitted services are going to have to be cut.

"What's coming down the line is unprecedented, in terms of funding and what council's are going to be expected to do with that money," Cllr Wellington said.

"|t's going to be very hard. None of us have seen anything like this before."

Cllr Wellington said collaboration, innovation and making tough choices is the new reality of local government.

Torfaen has been criticised for handing over many of its services including education improvement and leisure to outside bodies.

"With the leisure trusts we showed we can make tough decisions that are the right decisions," he said.

"We didn't enjoy doing that but we thought it gave leisure services a better chance to survive and thrive."

He said tough questions had been asked in the authority after their Estyn failures and did not accept that there had been a culture of shirking tough self-evaluation in the authority, despite the Wales Audit Office and Estyn being critical of Torfaen in that area.