WC budgets in disarray again

Wiltshire Council has a £5million hole in its budgets, according to the latest revenue monitoring report. (Cabinet agenda item 19)

Adult Social Services are overspending by £2,106,000. Children's Social Care is £330,000 over budget, with the cost of agncy staff identified as the main reason.

Rubbish has a colossal £2,700,000 overspend, and the council admits it doesn't understand the volumes and costs of waste collection and disposal in the current financial year.

The legal department is £500,000 over budget, and again the high cost of agency staff is blamed.

Meanwhile the amounts of council tax and business rates collected are down on last year.

The Conservative administration took £900,000 from reserves in July. No further raids on reserves are happening just yet as the plan is to try first to balance the budget by the end of the financial year. When this fails, the council's diminishing reserves will be raided again.