TAXPAYERS have called on council chiefs to shoulder the burden of “savage” cutbacks in Torfaen by slashing their allowances and costs.

The people of Torfaen have singled out council chief executive Alison Ward and her assistant chief executive saying they should reduce their costs by around a fifth, a new report has revealed.

They also called on Torfaen councillors to reduce their members’ allowances by a fifth, and allocations to Greenmeadow Community Farm to be cut by 20 per cent, a council report has showed.

The savings’ proposals came to light after Torfaen council conducted roadshows and engaged the public on the Government-led cuts through an online budget simulator.

Torfaen council said it was having to make £10m of savings this year after the Welsh Government reduced its funding allocation by 3.9 per cent.

Torfaen councillors held their first scrutiny meeting to examine where the axe could fall on Wednesday afternoon.

Cllr Anthony Hunt, Torfaen executive member for resources, said: “Given the savage cuts coming down from the UK Government, finding this level of savings is impossible without taking some extremely difficult decisions - especially after the scale of cuts local services have already faced over the past five years.

“This week’s meeting is the first opportunity for all councillors to have their say on the savings proposals, consider their impact on our residents but also identify any other measures they think should be considered in the process of setting a fair and balanced budget.”

The scrutiny report highlights areas where cutbacks could potentially be made, including up to £2.6m from social care and housing budgets and up to £1.1m from neighbourhood services.

The Labour council hopes the financial proposals will seek to achieve a balanced budget, protect school funding and avoid shutting services completely, the council scrutiny report indicates.

At the same time, the council will seek to deliver three priorities, namely raising educational attainment, protecting social care services and increasing recycling, the report states.

Around 200 people took part in the consultation including around 150 who used the online budget simulator and 50 who attended the Torfaen roadshows last month.

Potential saving proposals were highlighted in the report’s table entitled “Where people think savings could be made”.

Activities are now taking place to engage a further 100 young people with the consultation process.

A council spokesman said yesterday: "We’d like to thank the Torfaen residents who took the time to give us their views and suggestions on how the council could save money through our budget engagement campaign.

"The budget simulator exercise was used to illustrate the scale of the £10m challenge we are facing and challenge people to decrease our total budget and in the process tell us which services matter to them.

"We are pleased to publish the full results as part of the budget setting process and while on average, all services had their budgets reduced, our priority services of schools and social care remain the services that people valued the most.

"All the information and feedback will now be considered by members at the joint scrutiny committee which will be webcast so people can watch the proceedings."

The council scrutiny meeting is to take place at Pontypool Civic Centre at 1.30pm today [November 19].