Senior politicians have clashed again over how to tackle Hampshire County Council’s financial challenges.

Liberal Democrat councillor Martin Tod claimed the Conservative administration was “muted” in response to the scale of the issue.

He said the local authority could not continue to go about its budgeting and financial planning in the same way.

Council leader Nick Adams-King said no one was pretending the problem had disappeared but insisted the existing plan was working.

The row came during a debate on the authority’s outturn report for 2025/26.

When the budget was set in February last year, it included a requirement to use £64.9 million from a dedicated pot of reserves.

The outturn report confirmed this requirement had dropped to £20.7 million by the end of the financial year.

Cllr Adams-King said: “That doesn’t happen by accident.

“It is the result of savings programmes agreed by this council, difficult decisions made, firm expenditure controls put in place, better demand management, rigorous scrutiny of spending and thousands of individual decisions taken by staff throughout the organisation.”

Cllr Tod said while the level of reserves required to balance the books had reduced, there was still a need to use reserves.

He said: “It is a smaller than expected raid on reserves and it shows a council that is still in unambiguous financial crisis and it is more than external pressures.

“Yes, there is rising complex care demand and SEND pressures, but the underspends that are in this paper are masking fragility, unfilled social work posts and delayed savings.”

The Winchester representative said councillors owed it to the new unitaries taking over services in 2028 to find solutions.

Cllr Tod said: “I continue to be concerned that the administration’s response is so muted, whether in this paper or anywhere else.”

He said if the administration had a strategy and plan, it was secret and it had not been scrutinised.

Cllr Adams-King said there had not been a recovery but the council was also not in an “unambiguous financial crisis”.

He said: “Calling for a survival plan after a council has delivered an outcome which is £44.2 million better than budgeted rather overlooks the obvious.

“The plan is already being implemented and the details of it are presented to everybody by way of the different proposals that are put forward, through each of the different directorates, each of the different cabinet members over time.”

He said the £44.2 million in savings was close to the amount the council lost under the government’s funding arrangements for 2026/27.

Cllr Adams-King said: “The choice before us now is not between complacency and panic.

“It’s between disciplined financial management and performative alarmism.

“Where opposition members have alternative proposals they should put them forward.

“They should identify precisely which taxes they would increase, which services they would cut, how much they would borrow, and how much they would pay in interest.”

When set earlier this year, the revenue budget for 2026/27 included using £101.9 million of reserves and the forecast gap for 2027/28 stood at £179.7 million.