AN EXTRAORDINARY emergency meeting has been triggered at Worcestershire County Council, with Labour calling for government intervention to turn around a council in “total turmoil”.

The group has called the urgent meeting for the first time in their history to put forward a motion of no confidence in the Conservative leadership.

Labour say a failing children’s service, which has been rated inadequate by Ofsted and moved into the hands of Essex County Council, means children “are not safe”.

“Continual cuts”, including a need to reduce the council’s budget by £60 million over the next three years, puts the council in a “serious and perilous position”.

And at the meeting at 10am on Thursday (October 19), Labour councillors will demand internal running of the council is now taken out of their hands.

Labour group leader at Worcestershire County Council Peter McDonald, councillor for Bromsgrove Beacon, said: “Council finances are in crises, austerity budgets have now caused total turmoil; as a consequence children’s services are to be taken away from county council because children are not safe in the hands of the council.

“No services are now safe in the county’s hands.

“The austerity cuts of the past and present are going to decimate all services and put vulnerable residents and children at risk.

“The Labour Group believe this Tory incompetence and their continual cuts in services with some £60m additional cuts to be made has put the county council in a serious and a perilous position, caused by their incompetence and fiscal ineptitude.

“Labour are asking for the government to intervene as we can’t trust the current council leadership to put things right. They are unable or unwilling to change.

“When a council fails its residents like they have in Worcestershire, they send in commissioners to administrate the council, to ensure vital services are kept running.

“Labour have for the first time in the history of the county council made a formal request for an urgent and an emergency meeting of the full county council to discuss our concerns and to make a formal application for government intervention with the internal running and administration of the council, taking it out of the hands of the inept Tory cabinet who have failed the people and children of Worcestershire.

“We have no confidence that the Conservatives will do what is needed.

“We know they will cut deeply into the services needed and required by the most vulnerable of Worcestershire’s residents.

“We need urgent intervention to protect services and restore confidence”.

But Conservative council leader Simon Geraghty has accused Labour’s call for a meeting as “unnecessary”.

He said: "Labour are yet again engaging in political posturing in calling this unnecessary extra council meeting.

“Our administration is focused on getting on with the job of implementing our ambitious plan for the county and improving key council services - something we were democratically re-elected to do only a few months ago.

“Like every responsible public organisation we have to ensure the council continues to live within its means and we will set out our plans to do so in the forthcoming budget this December."