WARY council chiefs have warned that they will have to closely monitor departmental budgets after admitting they are already estimating a budgetary overspend.

After receiving another funding cut from the Welsh Government for this financial year, council Cabinet members heard that the authority could face an overspend of around £1.3m.

However finance Cabinet member Dafydd Edwards said he hoped that could be reduced over the course of the year.

The council has been forced to find cuts across services over the last three years with council leader Ellen ap Gwynn saying there has been a drop in Welsh Government funding of almost £35m in recent years.

A report that went to the council’s Cabinet said that in failing to implement savings proposals early enough, the council’s finances have been hit.

It said: “The 2016/17 budget is £131.5m. The current forecast is for an overspend of £1.3m based on the current worst case scenario due to slippage in savings and service transformation.

“These need to be implemented at a faster pace and or mitigated with alternative savings.

“Mitigation with alternative savings was an extremely successful approach last year which helped deliver the overall savings plan and remain within a balanced budget.”

One of the biggest anticipated overspends is in the council’s adult social care budget, which was expected to find savings of £2.1m, but has so far only found around £1.1m.

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