as it prepares to take the axe to its budget are eye-watering. £200m over four years is not something that can be found with that politician’s euphemism ‘efficiency savings’.

More worryingly, £200m over four years may not be the end of it. It is not beyond central government to land its local equivalent with a greater share of the burden in order to save a pet project or two elsewhere.

Even assuming £200m, it is hard to see where that sort of money is going to come from without decimating many areas of the council’s operations.

Education and social services consume the vast majority of the council’s spending.

We are led to believe that education — by far the biggest spender of the two — will receive at least some protection by order of the Government.

Where does that leave social services? One guesses that there are many at County Hall who would feel that this deserves a degree of protection too.

Clearly, that is not going to be possible to any great degree. Affording a little protection could lead to smaller spending areas such as libraries and roads maintenance being decimated.

Closing the library service and abandoning all roads maintenance would still leave the council more than £15m short of its target.

You cannot envy our councillors the decision on this one.