Council social work overspend down

A LOOMING financial blackhole in a struggling Dumfries & Galloway council department appears to have narrowed, slightly. Social work bosses reckon they only overspent by £1.546 million on the 2008/09 financial year.

That’s a bit better than their prediction on February which said the overspend would an even heftier £2.25 million.

Councillors were told that the reduction was due to a few adjustments here and there.

Janet Sutton, finance officer, told the social work services committee: “Since the last report to the committee in February 2009 a number of budget adjustments and virements (transfers) have been made mainly due to year end accounting adjustments such as … pension adjustments, pension charges, central support charges and capital charges.”

She said the social work department now has a budget of £82,618,563.

According to a report before yesterday afternoon’s committee, the biggest overspends have been in the adult services sector where homecare and occupational therapy costs have risen.

The children and families department has also overspent with agency placements for children mainly to blame.

The report adds: “The social work services management team have, throughout the year, actively sought to control and reduce budget overspending and have made significant progress in a number of areas … these controls and lower than anticipated spend on a number of specific projects have contributed to reducing the underlying overspend to £1.546 million.”