WARWICKSHIRE County Council is a “tightly run ship” says its leader – despite overspending by more than £3.8million in the past year.
Coun Izzi Seccombe was responding to a summary of WCC’s performance over the past financial year to April.
The summary focused on key areas including how the authority managed its finances and investments in 2022/23. WCC overspent by £3.85million, which was around 1.1 per cent of the its revenue budget but within the two per cent variance in which the authority operates.
WCC’s ruling Cabinet heard the figure was “greatly affected” by external factors, most notably the “unprecedented turbulence” in the global economy.
Figures showed that, with ten annual measures being reported, there had been a consistently strong performance delivered against the council’s performance framework key.
Of the key business measures available for reporting at the end of March, 66 per cent were on track.
This the council said was an encouraging position set against the continuing volatile, uncertain, and high-risk external environment which was impacting on resources and the wider economic environment, capacity, and uncertainty about a number of key national policy areas.
Other reports gave a progress report on the Sustainability Strategy, notably action the council was taking to decarbonise its vehicle fleet and invest in greener, more efficient energy.
And two reports dealt with young people with SEND. The first detailed additional school places that will be created at mainstream schools, keeping local children in their communities and reducing out of county placements and transport.
While the second report saw changes to the application process for transport to SEND schools changed in line with consultation. The new system will see the process streamlined so families could apply for transport while making their applications for school places.
Coun Seccombe said: “These reports demonstrated what a tightly run ship we have here at the council.
“We agree a Council Plan and a budget and then we constantly monitor everything we do to make sure that we are doing it as best we can to serve the people of Warwickshire. These reports were part of that tight process of scrutiny.
“Cabinet heard how the council is performing and we are very pleased. It is unrealistic to expect any council which delivers our services not to have areas where it needs to mitigate, especially in the economic climate which has increased demand while reducing resources to deliver.
“The council has been performing very well under incredibly difficult circumstances that were beyond our control and that we could not possibly have anticipated.
“These reports have reassured Cabinet that we know where we need to prioritise resources to make sure we are delivering our services to the high standards that we set ourselves. They also give that certainty that the financial management is in place to enable us to do that.”
