One thing that seems certain is more dark clouds are approaching on the horizon at Northamptonshire County Council.
Staff were told this week they face an average 3.6 per cent pay cut from April 2013 or dramatic changes to their working conditions - including non-payment for some periods of sickness absence - all in a bid to claw back £4million off the wages bill.
Opposition councillors and unions have condemned the move and urged the council leadership to protect jobs at all cost.
The Conservative-led administration is unlikely to admit publicly to it, but the authority is simply not receiving enough money from central Government. But it remains a fact that, for all the trumpeting about Northamptonshire having the lowest council tax in the country, the decision not to raise council tax in the very early days of the Tory administration just over six years ago, has left the authority in a very precarious position financially.
It has seemed ideologically opposed to it, long before Eric Pickles arrived to take charge of local government in Westminster.
Paying more council tax might deliver better services - or even protect existing ones - but try telling that to a public which seems unusually hostile to council staff being paid a decent wage.
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