Shropshire Council heading for £6 million overspend

The council’s cabinet will hear next week that the authority is on course for an overspend of £5.987m in the current financial year.

A forecast after quarter one had suggested it was heading for an £8 million overspend.

James Walton, the council’s director of finance, said: “The projected revenue out-turn is an overspend of £5.987m.

“As highlighted at quarter one, a number of red-rated savings are not deliverable in the current year due to timing but are deliverable in the medium term.

“This presents a short-term issue rather than an unachievable saving, with the potential to still deliver an element of the saving within this financial year.”

Mr Walton said one of the potential cost savings will come though the council making agency staff in its children’s services department permanent.

He said: “This includes the following larger savings totalling £3.079m: public health recommissioning across adults, children’s and public health (£1.064m); new development dividend (£1.025m); digital transformation (£0.990m).

“Ongoing service pressures relating to home to school transport (£1.020m) and children’s services staffing and agency costs (£0.985m) are under review.

“There is a strategy in development to transfer agency workers into permanent posts which will reduce the annual cost of these staff.

“Some of this cost reduction is included in the current financial position but there is still some benefit to factor in.”

Analysis

Mr Walton said that the authority would also be drawing up a proposal to provide home to school transport for children in special schools.

He said: “Early analysis of home to school transport trends over the last five years suggests that cost increases are driven by an increase in special school pupils requiring transport as opposed to mainstream where numbers remain relatively static.

“Further work is required to develop a strategy for alleviating the pressure in this area.”

He added that the council’s cabinet had also removed £1.3m of savings this year.

They include planned savings from the CCTV service.

Mr Walton also stressed the need for action across the council to ensure its budget is brought back into balance.

He said: “Cabinet has taken decisions to remove approximately £1.3m savings from the 2019/20 financial strategy: review of waste services (£0.7m); review of bus subsidies (£0.285m); passenger transport commissioning savings in learning and skills (£0.364m); CCTV monitoring service (£0.225m).

“If management action is identified to deal with the key issues identified, this has the potential to eliminate the projected overspend.

“Management action across all areas of the council is now required to attempt to bring the budget back into balance, as far as possible.”