PROPOSALS for “unrealistic cuts” and “overambitious” money making schemes for the 2019/20 budget are to face scrutiny from the authority's Finance Panel.
In total, Powys County Council was supposed to make cuts, cost reductions or avoidance measures worth £21,690,000 out of a £255million budget for the current year.
But this target will be missed by nearly £5,440,000.
At a meeting on Friday, March 20, the panel will be looking for answers, having asked for a report into why the proposed savings had not materialised.
It is expected that a £1.475 million savings can be rolled over into the new financial year and made in 2020/21.
But this still leaves £4.26 million undelivered.
A report by head of finance, Jane Thomas will attempt to explain why proposals put forward by PCC’s heads of service fail to materialise.
Ms Thomas, said: “The finance team has reviewed the impact assessments completed for the 2019-20 budget and have found that they tended to focus on the impact of proposals on residents and communities rather than on the risks around their implementation.
“As such the reasons for potential non-delivery were not identified in
the risk assessments for the proposal.”
Ms Thomas now believes that the quality of risk assessments has improved.
She added: “There was more rigorous challenge and scrutiny of proposals this year.
“Several budget challenge events have been held with officers to test the deliverability of each proposal, this includes cabinet, the executive management team and scrutiny committees.
“That said, there is still room for further improvement.
“The senior leadership team will review the 2019-20 and 2020-21 impact assessments in the first half of 2020-21 to learn lessons and design a quality assurance process ahead of the 2021-22 budget round.”
Proposals included increasing catering income by £230,000 , which was considered overambitious.
A reduction in cleaning costs of £75,000 was not taken forward, while sickness costs of £75,000 in the highways transport recycling department were considered unrealistic with existing terms and conditions.
A reduction in children in care costs of £1 million did not achieve its intended savings, even though the overall number of placements fell.
A strategy to cut agency costs has been developed, but missed the cut-off for this budget, and property management savings of £200,000 also came too late.
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