£1.1 million surplus predicted for 2021/22 budget

Some good news for Powys County Council is that the 2021/22 budget is predicted to provide a £1.155 million surplus at the end of the financial year.

This means that the council forecast that £278,653 million of the of £279,880 million allocation for this year will have been spent by the end of March.

And some further good news is that the £1.854 million ready to be transferred from other council accounts to the Children’s Social Services department to  help it balance is books won’t be needed.

At the end of October, the financial report for the second quarter of 2021/22 (July – September) revealed an alarming prediction that the £26 million budget would end up £1.8 above its allocation.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s cabinet on Tuesday, February 22 the financial forecast for the third quarter of 2021/22 , from October to the end of December was discussed.

Head of finance, Jane Thomas said: “We’ve had considerable levels of extra funding come through and is factored into the forecast position.

“We are still getting allocations through from the Welsh Government for the current financial year and that will impact the position at year end.

“One of the things to note is we recently agreed a virement for Children’s Services authorising £1.8 million from the reserve.

“We have received additional funding now to help us manage those pressures, so we’re not anticipating using that reserve movement.”

One of the key elements to balancing the budget is the for departments to find the £13.397 million in savings, cuts, and income generation.

Finance portfolio holder, Aled Davies pointed out that intended “cost reductions” had been a “mixed bag” as some services delivered all their savings while other have not.

Cllr Davies added that just over £3 million or 23 per cent of the total would not be delivered at the end of the financial year.

The report was noted and approved by the cabinet

The report shows that over £8 million in grant funding has been received by Powys County Council during the financial year.

These include:

• £2,667 million – local authority education grant to deliver the Winter of
• Wellbeing programme.
• £1,807 million funding to alleviate pressures for caretaking, cleaning and planned maintenance costs not covered by the (Covid) hardship fund.
• £797,106 – from which is to support the recovery of social care services in local authority areas across Wales, in respect of Children Service pressures and unpaid carers.