SOME good news for Powys County Council (PCC), as it emerged that last year’s budget, 2019/20, ended £1.46 million in the black.

This was an improvement of nearly £880,000 on the the predicted position at the end of February.

And, thought has been given to the impact of coronavirus on the council, with nearly £3million being squirrelled away into reserve accounts.

But, despite the good news, several departments were overspent by millions of pounds, but this was offset by other departments staying within their budgets, and not spending all their money.

The cabinet are set to discuss the budget closing position at their meeting on Tuesday, June 16.

Head of Finance, Jane Thomas, said: “Although the overall position is pleasing to report, the variances within the budget do not demonstrate the robust delivery of the budget plan.

“The council can only ensure its financial resilience with the consistent delivery of services within budget, successful delivery of planned cost reductions and the delivery of an accurately profiled capital programme.

“Without these fundamental elements the council has had to realign its budget plan during the year in order to maintain a balanced budget and limit the impact on reserves.

“This flexibility cannot be relied upon in future years.”

Ms Thomas explained that this year’s budget had been designed to fix problems from the past including undelivered savings/cuts.

But this had been before the Covid-19 pandemic emerged.

In the 2019/20financial year, PCC had planned to make a total of cost reduction/cuts of £21.69 million, but only £15.83 million were actually delivered by the end of March.

Of this, £1.475 million was rolled over into the new financial year.

The revenue budget was £185.425 million in 2019/20

The Housing Revenue Account and Schools Delegated Budget of £69.7 million take the overall budget up to £255.1million.

The departments over budget were:

Childrens’ Social Services were £4.65 million

Highways Transport and Recycling £1.67 million

Finance – £227,000

Education Services £172,000

Property, planning, and public protection £116,000

The department under budget were:

Corporate Activities – £6.8 million

Commissioning – £385,000

Digital Services – £377,000

Housing and Community Development – £213,000

Transformation and Communications – £189,000

Legal and Democratic Services – £179,000

Workforce and OD (Organisational Development) – £91,000

Regeneration – £45,000

Adult Social Services – £18,000