Bolton Council needs to find £30m of savings over 2 years

The local authority also will look at making savings across departments responsible for children’s services, adult social care and public health.

This involves axing at least 60 jobs which could contribute to £4.8m worth of savings across these departments.

Around half a million pounds of these savings could come from cuts to the community meals service and the school meals subsidy.

The biggest single cut would follow a “fundamental review” of early help in children’s services which is expected to save £3.5m.

Council leader Linda Thomas described cuts to preventative services as the most difficult because of the strain it puts on other services in the future.

She said: “We said five years ago that this will have an effect. We have been told austerity is dead but it’s not. We think austerity was never the right way forward."

However, she remained optimistic about the money that will come into the borough from private companies sparked by council investment.

Cllr Thomas added: “We have been so successful that I think we are approaching things right. If the government want to have a look at what we have done here, it’s a good model of how you stimulate your economy.”

The council’s chief executive Tony Oakman described the budget as a “sustainable” and “measured” set of proposals.

He said the budget is a "fine balancing act" but praised the local authority for not needing to use reserves to cash flow its proposals.

A total of £8m from the council's reserves will be used to balance the books for the 2019-21 budget meaning its departments must find further savings of £23.5m.

This will take the total figure of savings targets over a ten-year period to almost £190m.

A further £8m will be used from reserves to allow savings to be phased over the two-year period.

In November, the council said it would save £135,000 by looking to hand over all 28 bowling greens to their users.

It has now halved that saving target to £67k and promised to take a phased approach when moving bowling clubs to a self-management model.

The council also wants to save £100,000 by reducing the standard of the winter gritting service to match the levels provided by other Greater Manchester authorities.

Many of the savings would come from “transforming” the way the council works by going digital which includes no longer producing a waste calendar.

Other proposals include reviewing staffing, provision, fees and charges at the museum, library and archive services which is expected to save £430,000 at the cost of five full-time jobs.

UKIP leader Sean Hornby welcomed the budget proposals acknowledging the difficulties faced by the council.

He said: “I think this is probably the hardest budget that the council has had to do in a long time.”

He paid tribute to the residents who do jobs voluntarily, like litter pickers, which he said saves the councils “a vast amount of money”.

Liberal Democrat leader Roger Hayes said there were some “goodies” in the budget including things that his party have asked for.

However, he raised issues with the council tax rise set by the mayor of Greater Manchester for police, fire services and transport.

He said: “I don’t have any problem at all paying more money for police. But I believe this should be a national issue.”

Council tax is set to rise to by 3.9 per cent, the second lowest in Greater Manchester.

The increase in the precept set by Bolton Council has fallen to 2.25 per cent, down from 2.5 per cent, the rest of the rise comes from the mayoral precept.

When the new rate was announced on Monday, Cllr Nick Peel said that the local authority’s precept is in line with the rate of inflation, but Conservatives said it should come down to 1.5 per cent.

The mayoral precept, which is set to add £33 to the taxpayer's bill, will be decided at a GMCA meeting on Friday.

An additional £4m for district town centres and £2m for residential roads was also announced at Monday's cabinet meeting.