THIS morning's front page story may appear to be one of those reliable hardy perennials. Just as surely as the wrong sort of autumn leaves and the wrong sort of winter snow fall on the railway tracks, the first sign of spring is when the councils start whingeing that they aren't going to have enough money.

Then come the threats: either services will be cut or you'll have to pay through the nose. And by the time spring finally makes it into full bloom, an unhappy compromise is reached: services are trimmed a little and the council tax rises a lot.

Durham County Council will not increase its precept by 26 per cent as its worst case scenario suggests. It'll trim here and there and tax will be put up by about 15 per cent. Other councils will follow suit, with most people in the North-East expecting rises of ten per cent or more.

When inflation is running at less than two per cent, this is a lot. An awful lot.

But this year, it does look as if there really is a wolf at the door. For an authority as dyed-in-the-wool Labour as Durham to be rocking the boat for a government led by its most-cherished local Labour MP, something really must be scaring the chickens.

Anyone reading The Northern Echo regularly will have seen this coming. The region's police authorities have been warning that their pensions funds are desperately low. Care homes for the elderly have been closing with alarming regularity. Hundreds of people with mental health problems have suddenly been 'discovered' and social services are to meet the bill. All agree that railway bridges need to be safe, but councils will have to pay to make them that way.

In his pre-Budget statement, Chancellor Gordon Brown set this ball rolling by allowing for a 6.8 per cent council tax increase. At the weekend, an internal Labour memo revealed that the average rise will probably be around 12 per cent.

The Government has also removed the cap from councils, allowing them to tax as much as they like. This was a positive move: voters can now see precisely what their council costs them and can vote accordingly. Or was it a cynical move, with the Government foreseeing that the cap was about to blow and by removing it, the councils would take the blame for the pending tax rises?

Durham County is no doubt painting the bleakest possible picture and, no doubt, could find areas to make savings.

It is also making a valid point on behalf of all public services: they have been cut practically to the bone, but are expected to do more because of the hidden costs outlined on pages two and three.

In effect, it is saying: "We're hurting, Mr Blair."

A government committed to improving public services and delivering on its election promises cannot afford to ignore such a message.