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Three years ago there was consternation when Essex County Council announced ambitious plans to reduce its costs by more than £300m.

The authority said it would "fundamentally change" the way it worked. It claimed it would "put the people of Essex first" aiming to give them "the best quality of life in Britain" while protecting the services they most cared about.

It said it would make greater use of external providers, better use of technology and rigorously take out unnecessary costs.

And that's what it's been doing for the last two years: concentrating on its so-called back office and procurement costs and largely sparing the services which people use.

The council says that half of the £98m savings approved this week will once again come from further efficiency savings.

"Our transformation programme has already delivered £150m of savings and we have become a leaner and smarter organisation," council leader Peter Martin told members.

"We will continue to drive down costs by getting better deals and prices with our suppliers and modernising our IT infrastructure."

There was, of course, some pain in the budget. School transport will take quite a hit with no more subsidy for those who go to faith schools in the county, escorts on the buses will go and transport for children with disabilites will be reviewed. The opening times of libraries and recycling centres will also be reduced.

But unlike many other authorities in the region, no libraries will close, meals-on-wheels stay in place, so too do Sure Start centres and the subsidy for rural transport.

Throughout the council meeting, Conservatives (who dominate the authority) kept congratulating themselves on setting a budget which they feel is creative and resourceful.

"Our financial prudence has stood the test of time," deputy leader David Finch told the council. "This is nothing like we've seen in some parts of the country where there have been thousands of job losses and many important services closing."

"This budget is exemplar and I'll be proud to vote for it," declared Councillor Kevin Bentley before launching into an attack on the opposition Liberal Democrats for failing to come up with any real objections.

The Liberal Democrats do have a problem. They are the main (almost only) opposition on the council and yet, as Councillor Bentley and others pointed out to them, they are members of the government which decided to so dramatically slash the central grant to councils.

Their leader, Tom Smith-Hughes, criticised the fact that the number of staff earning more than £80,000 has increased from nine to 111 in the last 11 years. He also is worried that vulnerable children will lose out because of the cuts to the Connexions service, but on the whole appears to support the Conservatives' strategy.

"I am worried when frontline services are hit," he said. "But I'm very grateful that many of the savings are being made (to the back office) because it means the impact on frontline services is much less. It is, of course, tough on staff."

The one Labour councillor on the authority, Julie Young, claimed the cuts were not needed and were ideologically driven. Conservatives shouted her down.

"Just wait until May," she muttered, referring to the local elections when Labour hopes to do well.

By then the job count on Essex County Council will be coming down by a further 1,200 over the next year and there will be 450 more redundancies.

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