He said, she said - gags and game playing at Wirral Council

Labour are furious and the accusations are flying thick and fast this morning - with leader Steve Foulkes calling it "outrageous" and a threat to the democracy of the council.

They wanted to ask questions about whether front line services are being protected after almost 500 staff were allowed to take voluntary redundancy - but the Conservatives say budget decisions can't be scrutinised when they haven't yet been to the full council's budget meeting.

Labour councillors were already smarting from last month, when part of the council's legal constitution was suspended at a full council meeting to block their threat of legal action over the budget.

Cllr Foulkes argued then that making decisions on a £48m savings plan without referral to scrutiny committees removed a key part of the democratic process.

Labour's Ann McLachlan told the meeting last night: "My response is that this is a totally outrageous position, that the purpose of calling this meeting was to provide an opportunity to scrutinise those decisions which have already been taken.

"Staff have already left this authority. It is the democratic right of councillors to be able to scrutinise decisions in terms of what arrangements have been put in place to continue to provide services for the people of Wirral.

"It's about events that have already happened."

The Conservatives responded by saying Labour should speak to council officers if they need more information and not waste their time by calling meetings.

Cllr John Hale, who chaired last night's meeting, said: "They're playing politics.What they were trying to do was use the meeting to find out what the budget announcements would be in the next couple of weeks and they're not entitled to.

"I've been on the council for over 35 years and the leader, whether they're in Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, has never revealed their plans until the actual meeting and nobody would expect them to.

"What's more, they were interfering with the process. The people responsible for preparing the budget are engaged in all sorts of intensive meetings leading up to it in what's a very difficult situation nationally.

"To take officers away from that process to answer questions that could have been answered - I just think they're trying to undermine the budget.

"All they had to do was ask officers for a briefing if they had any questions, which is what we always had to do."