With a month left to land its 2025/2026 budget, a rosy financial position is being reported by Powys County Council.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Finance Panel on Wednesday, May 13, councillors will receive a report on how the 2025/2026 budget stood at the end of February.

Overall, the report paints a positive picture, with the council expecting to land its budget at the end of March with a £3.392 million surplus on its budget of just over £367 million.

This is an improvement on the predicted surplus of £1.382 million being reported at the end of December, and even improves on the £2.2 million surplus that was being predicted at the end of June last year.

The report explains: “The most significant change relates to the Adults Social Care forecast.”

The department has found £3.1 million, which comes from “over-achieved” income supporting the cost of care packages linked to retrospective adjustments and increased income from direct payment refunds, private fees charged to clients and deferred charges.

Other improvements are due to grant funding being received by the council, which includes £400,000 to be used on the cost of dealing with storms and floods.

The report also shows that the council is expecting to use just under £8.3 million in its “total reserves”.

This will see the reserves, which is money squirrelled away by the council to be used on a rainy day, drop from £65.040 million that it had on April 1, 2025, to £56.742 million by March 31.

The report says that schools are now expected to receive £2.5 million from their “delegated reserve”, which is an increase of £900,000 than had been previously predicted.

The report said: “The additional draw from reserves to that budgeted is due to schools in surplus drawing more from their reserves than originally planned, and some schools forecast outturn now projecting to be worse due to a number of factors.”

Director of corporate services and s151 officer Jane Thomas said: “The continued underspend position is positive and although improved from the previous reported position it remains minimal.

“We cannot underestimate the continued rigour needed in budget delivery and the achievement of savings by year end, particularly as the conflict in the Middle East remains volatile and impacts on the council’s costs across many of our services.”

Comments from the Finance Panel will be added to the report, which is expected to go before the Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet at a meeting on Tuesday, May 19.