Wirral Council has voted to endorse its leader's response to two damning reports which laid bare the authority's money problems.

The reports, one on finance carried out by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), and another by Ada Burns on governance, gave a damning verdict.

They included strong criticism of elected councillors and officers, stating that the 'prevailing culture' at the council prior to the pandemic had been to avoid difficult financial decisions, meaning the council's emergency reserves had been dramatically reduced in recent years.

In the documents, Wirral Council was told to consider closing libraries, leisure centres and golf clubs, as well as selling Wallasey and Birkenhead Town Halls.

At last night's full council meeting, Labour and the Tories backed a motion endorsing the authority's response to accept many of the recommendations in the reports.

They outnumbered the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and independent councillor Jo Bird, who supported a motion to simply 'note' the council's response to the reports.

Opening the discussion, council leader Janette Williamson said the meeting was about showing the government that Wirral Council was responsible and that it accepted the report's findings.

She added that work now needs to be done to improve the council's finances.

But Cllr Phil Gilchrist, leader of the Lib Dem group, did not support Cllr Williamson's motion, and asked where the challenge to the government was over the potential damage cuts could cause to local services.

This continued the dynamic from meetings held last week. Last Wednesday, it was revealed that officers were looking at moves to save £27m from the local authority's revenue budget.

The night before this, Labour, Conservative and Green councillors pushed through a motion agreeing to a number of moves advised in the damning reports, including halting the council's £5m investment in a community bank.

But the Liberal Democrats did not sign up to this, with Cllr Gilchrist saying the public would not be involved enough in decisions going forward given the increased powers set to be given to council officers.

However, all groups supported moving the local authority's elections away from a model where a third of councillors stand for election in three out of every four years, to a system where every seat is up for election once every four years in a so-called 'all out' model.

Yesterday, Cllr Gilchrist's stance was supported by Lib Dem colleagues including Cllr Stuart Kelly, who said that rushed decisions are poor decisions.

He wanted to make sure all 66 Wirral councillors were involved in the big decisions going forward, noting that the reports called for members to be engaged at an early stage with the council's plans.

Green group leader, Cllr Pat Cleary, supported the Lib Dem motion, although he signed the letter sent by Wirral Council accepting many of the report's recommendations last week.

Cllr Cleary added that austerity was the main cause of the council's money problems and said tonight's Lib Dem motion was mainly about process.

Independent councillor Jo Bird, who was recently permanently excluded from the Labour Party, thought it was "misleading" and "scaremongering" to suggest that commissioners could come to Wirral and said the authority was not close to bankruptcy.

She suggested that there were earmarked reserves, beyond the council's general fund reserves, which could be used to support its budget rather than the sort of cuts which are set to be brought forward.

However, several other councillors got up to say that they disagreed with Cllr Bird's analysis of the numbers.

In the end, the motion to endorse the reports passed comfortably.

Labour's Paul Stuart said the council had tried its best to use reserves to protect the most vulnerable from the impact of dwindling resources and please everybody in the hope that a "white knight" would rescue the local authority.

He added that this had not happened and so councillors must step up and make the decisions they were elected to make whatever the impact at the ballot box.

Cllr Stuart said that if this did not happen commissioners could come in and carry out a "fire sale" of assets without members being involved, so all parties needed to come together.

Conservative councillor Jeff Green said the idea that councillors had not been consulted about the response to the reports so far was "abject nonsense" and that the council leader has worked with other members.

Tory group leader Tom Anderson also supported the council leader's stance, saying that the council's "eye watering" deficit must be removed next year and that if it is not the council will become effectively bankrupt.

Therefore, he called on councillors to work together.