More council savings to come

South Holland District Council made savings of £1.24m in the last financial year but further cuts are likely after it also had a £249,000 overspend on its budget.

The deficit, which is against a budget of £13.1m, will be made up from the council tax reserve and is offset by a £125,000 underspend, a report to the council’s cabinet states.

As well as the COVID-19 pandemic and current ‘Cost of Living’ crisis, the report also highlights the authority has undergone a break up with its partnership with Breckland to move into the South and East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership with Boston and East Lindsey District Councils.

The authority had hoped to find around £1.7m worth of savings.

Portfolio holder for finance Coun Peter Coupland, told a meeting of the council’s Cabinet: “It’s not an easy task with council officers dealing with budget holders all the time trying to make sure the budget is met.

“If there is a chance to save, we will save.

“We’ve still got some more efficiencies to bring through, we’ve been working on them for three or four months now, and that will carry on.”

Elsewhere there was an underspend of £1.6m on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA).

This was said to be due to the pandemic. “We couldn’t get into people’s homes as we should,” Coun Coupland continued.

General Fund Reserves had decreased by £1.87m to £11.6m while the HRA reserve was forecast an increase from £27.3m to £28.2.

Council tax collection rate was near 97 per cent with business rate collection 98.5 per cent, higher than the previous year. The collectable debt remained £2.2m.

At the same meeting the council wrote off just over £48,000 of debt its officers said could not be recovered.

“All in all it’s been a challenging year, partly with COVID, but government grants of near £1.5m really helped us through to near balancing our books, as it did with many authorities,” Coun Coupland said.