Council looks to its reserves for shortfall

South Holland District Council has moved £300,000 from its reserves to offset a budget shortfall.

An emergency meeting of its Cabinet was held on Tuesday to vote through the measure.
Leader Coun Nick Worth said he’d called the meeting to be transparent after errors had been identified in the previous budgets including some government funding given that had been ‘duplicated’ in the statistics.
But he told the meeting what were called ‘misalignments’ in the report had been spotted due to a greater emphasis on scrutiny, that recent turnover of staff had been an issue and he has faith in the new financial team.
Council managers had been requested to find £887,000 of savings this financial year, but so far only £611,000 had been allocated, which includes a £299,000 one-off government grant.
Other increasing costs meant the projected overspend for the year was £338,000, Coun Paul Redgate told the meeting.
The cost of a five per cent pay increase – which was set to exceed what was budgeted, the continuing costs of housing the homeless and the costs of agency staff were reasons he outlined for the increased costs.
Coun Bryan Alcock asked why there were so many ‘mis-aligned budgets’ and asked how much that had cost the council.
Deputy chief executive Christine Marshall said: “I think it’s fair to say it is a result of staff turnover and not as much detailed scrutiny as we might have done this year.
“I can reassure you myself and the team will be making sure that scrutiny happens and its happening as we speak.
“I’m very confident this will not be a phenomenon that repeats itself.
“We’ve seen a particularly difficult year this year and we’re now working through it.”
Responding to Coun Alcock’s question about whether she was confident the Castle Sports Complex would still be delivered Mrs Marshall continued: “I can assure you there’s a project team around this and we believe we have all the resources we need to get it completed.”
Coun Worth said: “We’ve a talented new team, I’m delighted to have on board and now we’re working to stop these issues coming through in the future.
“I’m now convinced most of the issues have been sorted out. The team have a better understanding of what we want as an administration and getting the errors taken out of the budgeting process.”
Coun Alcock also asked Coun Tracey Carter about getting homeless costs down.
“Now the team is fully staffed we can see the improvements being done,” she responded. “House assessments are being completed in one week rather than eight.
“We’re reducing the amount of costs on B&Bs so the stress on the budget is moving in the right direction.”