THE leader of Worcestershire County Council has denied a charge from his Labour counterpart that he is trying to avoid using the word "cuts".

Councillor Peter McDonald, who runs County Hall's Labour group, has accused the leadership of being "untruthful" by referring to the cutbacks as 'savings'.

The criticism has been refuted by Councillor Simon Geraghty, who has pointed to the record capital investments in the county despite the shrinking day-to-day finances.

Amid unprecedented demographic pressures and ongoing funding reductions, bosses are forecasting that around £34 million will need to be shed from the budget in the 2017/18 financial year.

Councillor McDonald, speaking during a full council meeting, referred to an in-house report which kept on using the expression 'savings'.

"This council seems to be untruthful when it comes to cutbacks," he said.

"It says in one paragraph 'this council has saved £120 million since 2011'.

"Well if I've got £10 to spend and I say 'I'm going to save that', it means I've got £10 less to use somewhere else.

"Isn't it about time we started telling people the truth - and the truth is that these are cuts?"

Councillor Geraghty said: "I don't think this is a matter we're going to agree on.

"While we saved £120 million during that time period, there was also a lot of extra investments made as well.

"This is a council which still spends a net budget of £330 million a year, while we did 'save' £120 million there were many investments too."

Six months ago we revealed how one of Councillor Geraghty's first acts as new leader was to fire off a highly-critical letter to the Government, saying he was "extremely disappointed" by the ongoing Whitehall squeeze.

That letter led to ministers awarding Worcestershire a £5 million funding boost over two years, but the money is merely 'transition funding' designed to ease the impact of future changes.

At the time some £416 million of transition cash was promised to local authorities nationwide.

Before Chancellor George Osborne was sacked by Theresa May he was intending to scrap the main Government funding pot for councils - the Revenue Support Grant - and allow them to keep their business rates instead.

That change is still expected to happen under the new-look Government.