COUNCILLORS came head to head at an extraordinary meeting called following a report on the budget underspend, a total of £1.036,000 million.

Opposition members said jobs could have been saved in the redundancy cuts and services didn't need to be axed.

At the meeting in County Hall last Wednesday, councillor Rob Griffiths slammed the leader for the "state" of council finances.

He said: "Two accountants have left as part of the excellent savings scheme next year, I imagine their jobs will be much harder. Congratulations for councillor Crump with that little gem."

Councillor Griffiths said members of the public, including "frustrated conservatives" have contacted him over the issue.

"People are asking me what on earth are these monkeys doing?" he said.

Leader of the council Andrew Crump said there were even more difficult times ahead with a shortfall of £7 million for next year.

He said: "Some members have said that underspending is worse than overspending. I would much rather be in a position of underspend than overspend.

"I would remind members of the medium term financial plan. We don't have to look too far to see the difficulties we face.

"If you think cutbacks we have made already are difficult, tell me how you feel we are going to plug the £7 million gap."

Councillor Griffiths congratulated the new prime minister Gordon Brown before criticising the leader for his comments on the underspend.

He said there were "pots of money hanging around."

"For councillor Crump to say 'look at this underspend aren't we marvellous' is disgusting. The reason for this is that you got in a panic over this financial mess. "Luckily you had intelligent officers to make sure the work was done. "It is astounding that councillor Crump can stand up and make a joke about it. I am sure people have suffered. This was a failure for us because we have over egged the pudding," he said.

Councillor Crump said: "I am not known for my sense of humour and I do not joke about people's jobs."

Councillor Griffiths said MCC could not expect any financial help from the Welsh Assembly in the future as a result of the underspend figure.

"What happens when we have this meeting with Rhodri Morgan. How can we argue we need more money when we have £2 million that we never needed in the first place so next time we have less and less. What madness is that."

Councillor Rob Griffiths joined the leader and fellow members in thanking officers and MCC accountants for putting the report together.

Councillor Verona Nelmes said she was worried that MCC were not meeting the needs of vulnerable people in the county.

"When I looked at this report I could not believe my eyes, a £600,000 underspend in social services is a disgrace.

"People are falling out of the radar and not getting the services they need and the managers are frightened to step out of their budgets."

Councillor Brian Hood was delighted with the underspend.

He said: "These councillors have made a serious misunderstanding, they have not looked at the medium term finance plan.

"I am delighted that I belong to the group that has stopped that and put money back into reserves for emergencies, just as we see in the north of England this week."

Councillor Peter Fox said the future was not going to be easy: "I must thank all members in life long learning. It was an extremely difficult time to manage and they have done a wonderful job.

"We are going to have to make very difficult decisions on services over the next three years."

A council spokeswoman said: "The council worked hard to ensure budgets came in online but not at the expense of further risk to direct services for people.

"The underspend puts the council in a better position to meet the financial and services challenge in the medium term financial plan.

"Unfortunately, the financial picture remains extremely tight and the measure put in place were needed for for 2006/7 and subsequent years.

"Regrettable the reduction of jobs and services was necessary to make sure the council was living within its means. We can assure councillor Nelmes that no money was underspent in the social services training budget and we are pleased to announce the team were recent finalists at the social care accolades."