A Powys council chief is “content” that this year’s budget will balance at the end of the year.

The assurance was given at a meeting of the county council’s Finance Panel as councillors and independent lay members discussed the budget monitoring report for the second quarter of 2025/2026.

This shows that between July and the end of September the council forecast that it will see a surplus of £800,000 posted at the end of the financial year on its budget of £367.055 million.

Finance chiefs forecast the authority will spend £366.244 million by the end of next March.

This is a drop of £1.4 million from the position reported by the council at the end of June, which showed a surplus of just under £2.2 million being predicted.

Finance Panel Chairman and Conservative group leader, Cllr Aled Davies (Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant & Llansilin) asked: “How robust is the position at the moment, given there have been significant changes between the first and second quarter?

“How confident are you in getting the budget on target at the end of the financial year?

Head of Finance, Mari Thomas said: “Obviously things change throughout the year.

“In particular, one of the big changes we saw between the end of quarter one and quarter two is around the assurance we had around the savings position and what has been achieved.

“I’m content that it’s as robust as it can be, given where we are.”

Within the budget there is an expectation that £16 million worth of cuts and savings need to be found to balance the books for 2025/2026. Included in this sum is £3.7 million from previous years.

The report explains that £10.229 million has been “actually achieved” – with £4.950 million “not yet achieved but assured”.

This leaves £1.275 million in the “not yet achieved or assured” column.

Cllr Pete Lewington (Conservative – Newtown West) asked: “What’s the contingency plan if we don’t achieve those savings?”

Ms Thomas said: “That column is a result of close working between the (finance) teams and the heads of services so that it reflects the most up to date position.

“There’s still six months of the financial year (from the end of September) for services to deliver savings.

“We do challenge services on whether they can achieve the savings or to agree temporary mitigation while they are putting their plans in place to achieve those savings.”

Cllr Lewington asked: “If they just can’t achieve that £1.3 million, is there any contingency or what happens?

Ms Thomas stressed that the expectation is that services will find those savings or deliver alternatives this year.

“If that’s not achieved, we will roll them on into future years. I supposed that is the contingency plan,” said Ms Thomas.

The report will go before a Cabinet meeting next month and will include comments from the panel.