A report into County Hall’s finances which included some damming findings was kept secret by council bosses.

But leader of Worcestershire County Council Simon Geraghty said most of the information came out into the public domain in briefings and council papers as this year’s budget was set.

In June 2017 members of the council’s Conservative Cabinet and top officers in the senior leadership team heard from experts at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy , who had been asked to look into the financial situation, at a cost of £29,000.

The slides presented to the group included some alarming language – saying there ‘was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide’ and that expected savings from ‘transformation’ of the council were 'over-optimistic'. ‘ The administration’s approach to setting council tax increases below maximum allowed was called ‘counter-intuitive.”

Quizzing Cllr Geraghty was Councillor Chris Bloore, the Labour chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board.

He said: “Even if you didn’t want to release this to the public, why didn’t you let members of the council see it? Wouldn’t it have allowed them to make better decisions when they came to voting on the budget and council tax? Do you regret not releasing the report?”

Cllr Geraghty said the slides were not a report, just some slides, and that it was perfectly normal for a council’s finance boss to ask for such input, and for it to be used by senior officers and members to formulate policy.

He added: “We used the information to change our policy on increasing council tax and the council’s finances are healthy.

“The information in these slides was released in cabinet papers and briefings throughout the autumn and winter, as we developed the budget proposals.”

Councillor Geraghty was supported by Worcestershire MP and the Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid. who said: "Its perfectly proper for councils to commission such scrutiny.Whether they then release those reports or not, as long as all councils act within the rules – and in this case Worcester absolutely has - then it’s not for me to decide whether they need to go beyond the rules.