Wiltshire Council budgets in disarray
A report to the WC cabinet shows budgets currently overspent by £3 million. This includes half a million in Adult Social Care, £1.7 million in Childrens Social Care, another £1.7m overspend on children with disabilities, and eight hundred thousand in computing. There is a claimed underspend of £1.865m in what's described as 'corporate areas', though this seems to be due to creative accounting rather than real savings.
WC officers say they hope to cut budgets by the end of the financial year to get a balanced outcome, though if they're not able to do this then reserves will be raided. This would reduce the council's reserves to dangerously low levels.
They hope to cut the cost of adult care by squeezing old people. Ominously they state, "In the last month we have seen a significant reduction in both numbers and unit cost of a number of older people care costs."
Wiltshire Council will though spend a million pounds putting traffic lights on the Farmers' roundabout at Melksham.
The meeting is on December 15th.