Council set to overshoot budget by over £2million

CASH-STRAPPED Walsall Council is forecast to spend more than £2m over its budget for this financial year.

Extra pressures across social care in particular means the authority has had to dig deeper into its pockets to the tune of £2.4m on top of the original £172.21m revenue budget.

A scrutiny overview committee noted the authority’s 2018/19 financial position at a meeting on Monday night (November 26).

In contrast, the council’s capital spend is headed for a £3.5m underspend, the majority of which will be carried over to the next financial year.

The council is currently consulting on its latest budget proposals for 2019/20 which sees the authority having to make £20m worth of savings.

A report to committee said: “A number of significant risks and pressures have emerged during 2018/19 that has required action to be taken to limit the council’s exposure, mainly within Adult Social Care and Children’s Services.

“These are being managed via a combination of one off actions – use of earmarked reserves, use of one-off grant, Every Penny Counts exercise – and ongoing actions (review of existing budgets and realignments where feasible).

“After corrective action, there remains a predicted revenue variance above budget of c£2.4m.

“The above potentially impacts on general reserve balances. General reserves were £15.23m at April 1, 2018. A year-end overspend of £2.40m would reduce reserves to £12.83m.”

It added: “The capital position is a forecast underspend of £3.55 million for the council as a whole, of which £3.52m illion is proposed to be carried forward into 2019/20, thus a net underspend of £28k.”