Devon County Council forecasts a £4.4 million overspend in people’s services

In a scrutiny committee meeting today councillors have been briefed on how a potential £4.4 million overspend will affect consideration of the forthcoming budget for 2014/15 which will be agreed next January.

The bulk of the overspend comes from Children’s and Adult’s protection services which predicts it will spend more than £3.1 million more than originally budgeted.

In a report to scrutiny committee the county treasurer breaks down the extra expenditure: “£500,000 relates to higher numbers of Secure Welfare placements of Devon children than provided for within budgets. £1 million concerns the overspend in social work teams from the delayed restructure and high agency costs.

“£600,000 is for legal disbursements and £1 million for external placements of looked after children, due to higher than average costs per child than budgeted, especially in residential placements.”

The Ofsted action plan put forward to address issues raised by Devon's children services and is expected to cost £1.5 million over 2014 and 2015.

The report critisised a lack lack of stratergy and leadership in Children's services and gave the service an 'unacceptable'  the lowest of four available rating

A Devon County Council spokesman said: “Some of the overspend is due to increasing demand for our services and some is extra expenditure as a result of the Ofsted inspection earlier this year.

“We are extremely mindful of the need to contain costs but we will spend extra money when the protection of vulnerable children requires it.”