Redundancy overspend costs council

More than £500,000 has been overspent by Argyll and Bute Council in redundancy packages, a report has revealed.

The authority could also face a further £172,000 bill for a possible VAT misdeclaration, along with £200,000 of unachievable procurement savings.

A report for the meeting of the council’s policy and resources committee on Thursday February 20 stated its projected overspend for 2019/20 is nearly £2.5 million – an increase of £400,000 since the committee’s last meeting in December.

The report said: ‘The main overspend is in relation to social work, where there is a forecast overspend of £1.310m due to a combination of forecast slippage on the delivery of agreed savings and a high demand for services. Within the remit of executive director Kirsty Flanagan, there is a forecast overspend of £0.349m. There are overspends resulting from a loss of income in public conveniences, loss of car parking income, loss of planning income, additional cost for street lighting consultant, additional glass collection costs and increased costs of essential repairs on vehicles.

‘These are offset by additional income from decriminalised parking enforcement and a planned underspend on roads maintenance.

‘Within the remit of executive director Douglas Hendry, there is an underspend of £0.191m resulting from an insurance saving on non-profit distributing organisation schools. Within central budgets there is an overspend of £0.876m in relation to exit packages (£0.504m), unachievable procurement savings (£0.200m) and a potential VAT mis-declaration (£0.172m).’

The report also states the council currently has a year to date underspend of over £1.8m, and gives more detail on the social work overspend.

That figure, established by the integration joint board (IJB) of the area’s health and social care partnership, has gradually decreased from £2.3m in June to £1.3m in December.

Argyll and Bute Council's 2020/21 budget plans were discussed at the same meeting and the full council will meet to finalise the budget on Thursday February 27.