Council to discuss £11m ‘overspend’ on children’s services

COUNCIL CHIEFS will today debate an “overspend” of £11 million by Leeds City Council’s children’s services department.

Dan Cohen, inset, the authority’s Conservative shadow spokesman on children’s services, has submitted a motion to the monthly full council meeting calling for “greater scrutiny” of the department’s budget.

Coun Cohen claims the department had overspent its budget by nearly £8 million in the last financial year. And he says that after just two months of the current financial year, the same directorate has a projected overspend of £2.9m.

Speaking ahead of the debate at Leeds Civic Hall today, Coun Cohen said he accepted that many of the pressures in the department were “demand-led” as a result of unanticipated levels of need in areas like children in care, but said the time had come for more attention to be paid the knock-on effect on other directorates. He said: “We agree that the council must meet the needs that arise in Children and Families, including the vital work around supporting Children Looked After. “Money must be provided to meet those demands. But, of course, when a department overspends on its budget, it means the money needs to be found from other areas of council spend, which is bound to have an effect on other departments’ plans. “In the last few years the department has repeatedly reported an overspend, even as other departments are delivering underspends. It is also projecting to overspend in the current year. That raises serious questions about why the budget-setting process in Children and Families is failing to accurately project levels of demand. “We do need to scrutinise why budget planning in this directorate has been so far out of sync with reality.”