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Some people say that you have enough money in the bank and you should not be making any cuts at all?
Budget Consultation 2010/11
It is true we have some money in the bank, all councils do, but prudent financial management means having reserves to meet what we know we need to spend, and also having some money set aside to provide for unexpected events or emergencies. These reserves are invested and earn interest that is used to support the revenue budget.
We haven't simply been sitting on this money in the bank - we have, for many years, used it to fund local services. But common sense (and indeed the law) requires us to make sure that we don't run our reserves down so much that we put ourselves in a position where we can't deal with unexpected events or emergencies.
We also have to bear in mind that a large proportion of our reserves are capital reserves which means they can only be used to pay for things such as property or equipment, and can't lawfully be used to fund the running of day-to-day services.