AN ESTIMATED £500,000 overspend by Ceredigion council has been hailed by council chiefs as “very positive” - compared to the forecast.

The council’s finance department is anticipating that the authority will overspend on its 2015/16 budget by £524,000 when the final accounts are confirmed, an improvement on the predictions made at the end of December.

That has led council leader Ellen ap Gwynn and finance Cabinet member Dafydd Edwards to praise the council’s handling of its budget after finding savings of around £11m during the course of the financial year.

Significant overspends by the social services department in both families and children services and adult social care services were balanced by a range of underspends across departments including learning services, financial services and the technical services department.

The council was expecting the final position to be an overspend of more than £700,000, but improvements had seen that reduced to £524,000.

A report that went before the Cabinet said: “The forecast overspend is £524,000 which is an improvement when compared to the end of December when the forecast overspend was in excess of £700,000.”

Cllr Edwards said: “We hope to be closer to the forecast budget. Things look surprisingly good."

Cllr ap Gwynn added: “It’s very positive to think that after cutting over £11m from the budget, in month 11 we’re only £500,000 over the budget. I hope it will be even better.”

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