As a week of council cuts draws to a close, let’s compare these two official statements.

First, from Labour-run Blackburn with Darwen Council leader Kate Hollern, announcing 1,000 job losses: “We are forced to consider reducing, changing or in some cases stopping what council staff provide for the people of our two towns.”

Then this, from neighbouring Ribble Valley Council’s leader, Tory Michael Ranson: "We have been able to recommend a budget to full council that proposes a council tax freeze, with no reductions in services to residents and no compulsory redundancies, while maintaining our support for charitable and voluntary organisations.”

So if you live in Beardwood, your council is slashing everything from street cleaning to school buses, but in nearby Mellor your council tax is going towards a ‘recession-busting’ budget with no services cut.

I know which postcode I’d prefer.

But this goes to the heart of the bitter row over the government’s funding for councils.

It’s complicated but important.

Labour says poorer areas in the North are being hit harder than posh southern shires, while Conservatives like Rossendale and Darwen’s Jake Berry accuse Labour of playing politics with the figures, saying the size of the cuts is being exaggerated.

It’s not just Conservatives making these claim: a very senior council officer told me this week that he couldn’t believe the job-loss figures coming out of some authorities.

So here is the Government’s table, showing the size of reduction made to each council’s grant.

It says Ribble Valley’s funding was cut by six per cent, Blackburn’s by 10.5per cent.

But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Under Labour, deprived areas like Blackburn and Burnley received a string of extra grants aimed at helping specific issues, like teenage pregnancies, unemployment, community tensions or poor housing.

They don’t show up in the cuts table, but they are being cut too.

Many of these paid for full-time council staff. So now they are being stopped, these staff face losing their jobs.

But this process takes up to nine months, and many of the grants are being cut next month, so councils are left to foot the wage bill and any redundancy costs.

Areas like Ribble Valley (and most of the South East) don’t get these grants, so councillors there aren’t having to grapple with anywhere near the same problem.

Then there’s council tax.

The Tories are focusing on councils’ ‘spending power’ (income from council tax plus Government grant).

If your Government grant is cut by 10per cent, they say, you shouldn’t cut services by the same amount because you’re still getting money from council tax.

(Incidentally, Ribble Valley fares well from council tax too, with plenty of high-valued properties to bring in top band rates, and so relies less heavily on government support.) In Manchester this has led to a bitter row between the (Labour) council and Tory ministers, who have accused councillors of ‘politically-motivated’ cuts to libraries and leisure centres.

In Blackburn with Darwen’s case, we can be almost certain the cuts would have been on the same scale if the Tory Lib Dem coalition were still in charge - in fact they had made an early start with Shadsworth Leisure Centre before the power changed hands.

With budget-setting meetings looming, this isn’t a debate that’s going to go away, and nobody can deny it’s going to be a pretty horrendous year for town halls, as well as those who rely on their services.

As Andy Kay, Blackburn with Darwen’s resources chief, said at last night’s meeting: “£30million is £30million, whichever way you look at it.”