Council set to miss its savings target by £6m
CARDIFF Council is on track to miss its savings targets by more than £6m this year.
Frontline council services were told they had to save £19.157m from their budgets this year as the authority continues to face huge shortfalls.
But a report has said council services are on track to miss the savings target by £6.29m – with £7.670m of cuts already being made and a further £5.197m expected to be achieved by the end of the year.
There are some areas of the council which are expected to have an underspend or make more money than previously thought.
For example, the council had expected to make a £7.227m surplus from parking fines this year – but it now expects to make £8.019m due to “an overachievement in on-street car parking fees through a combination of increased charges and higher volumes linked to the digital payment process”.
It all means that budgets for frontline services are on track to be overspent by £7.018m this year.
The social services and planning, transport and environment departments are on track to be the most overspent, exceeding their annual budgets by £4.2m and £2.457m respectively.
Cardiff council has faced a budget gap of £35.2m in this financial year and a shortfall of £92.9m over the next three years.
The figures have been revealed in the council’s latest budget monitoring report, published in September.
Chief executive of the council Paul Orders and Chris Lee, the corporate director of resources, have told service directors to reduce their overspends without any detrimental impacts on service provision.
The report says directors will be expected to implement a number of measures including “director sign-off for purchases of goods and services, review and restrictions on agency and temporary staffing arrangements, robust staff vacancy management and a review of income generation”.
The £8m made from civil parking enforcement will go into a reserve to pay for highway, transport and environmental maintenance and improvements, the council says.