MILLIONS of pounds of historic savings that Powys County Council (PCC) should have made in recent years, could be wiped off the slate as they cannot be made.

Finance portfolio holder Cllr Aled Davies said at this week's Audit Committee that he will be discussing the unachievable savings with the cabinet in the next few weeks.

At the moment PCC have a projected overspend of £5.82 million and will probably have to rely on money from the reserves to plug the hole.

But another issue with budget setting, is historical savings that departments have been expected to make over several years.

At the Audit Meeting, Cllr David Thomas, brought the issue up and said: "There is a trend developing where we have overspends year after year.

"We seem to be spending money but not managing the budget.

"The thing that concerns me is the number of high risk savings historically that we are failing to deliver.

"From 2015/16 to 2019/20 we have an accumulation of £7.3 million in unmade savings.

"There is a red measure of £4.9 million - that is going to be carried over unless someone like the Welsh Government steps in.

"These savings need to be reviewed and where they are not achievable, build something in that is achievable.

Finance portfolio holder, Cllr Aled Davies, said: "Savings are from two or three years ago that have been carried through from the previous council.

"We are taking a view on those in this particular budget round for 2019/20 and I'm sure we will deal with some of those quite quickly."

Deputy chief executive, David Powell, added: "I will give assurances that we're writing out some of the undelivered savings.

"What the Council has got is the ability to deliver savings over a longer period than one year.

"But we're now getting to the point when some of the savings won't be delivered.

"We're going to have to write out nearly £4 million in savings from this year's budget that cannot be delivered.

"Some of the savings are from Children's Services and it's absolutely inappropriate to expect that area to make savings when improvements need to be made."

Audit committee chairman, Cllr John Morris, pointed out that the senior management team, and cabinet had been warned in the past by the committee that some of the savings being considered would be undeliverable.