Council forecasting £15m overspend
The authority has warned of greater demand in costly services for vulnerable children and adults
North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) is expected to overspend on its budget by £15m this financial year. This comes as the authority has warned of greater demand in costly services for vulnerable children and adults.
The biggest bill sits with Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT) and other children’s services, which is due to spend a massive £8.8 million over its original budget. The main pressures relate to placement costs, higher needs for secure accommodation and an increase in complexity and demand for residential placements.
Adding on to this, there is also a forecast overspend of £5.1m in adult social care services, again largely on care costs, a £1.5m pressure on home-to-school transport, and increased spending in legal services, HR, insurance premiums and other enabling services totalling £1.4m.
Leader of NNC, Martin Griffiths, said that the finance monitoring reports had been created to “keep an eye on the books” and work towards the goal of achieving a balanced budget.
“What this means is that we can identify how savings can be made right now, while there are a few months before the end of the financial year,” he added.
“We recognise that here, like elsewhere, we face significant challenges both with service demand and the economic conditions. However, we also need to do what we can to face those challenges head on and be as lean and efficient as possible while delivering quality services to our residents.”
The report says that officers will continue to seek efficiencies in year to offset forecast overspends. However, the financial situation could also worsen – as was seen just a few months ago in August when NNC’s predicted overspend sat at £9.4m.
NNC has added that, where pressures cannot be offset through the work of officers, it holds a number of cash reserves to intervene and keep the budget on track.
The 2025/26 financial year will end at the start of April. NNC is currently in the process of setting a new budget for 2026/27.
It announced earlier this year that it would need to find £30m in savings to plug a funding gap and set a balanced budget. According to the council, detailed scrutiny is being undertaken in the ‘most volatile areas’ of adult social care, home to school transport and children’s services.
Since the start of the current financial year, the authority has made £22 million in efficiency savings out of the £28.6 million earmarked, with a further £4.8 million still to be delivered.