Northamptonshire County Council is predicting a £5.8m overspend on its 2019/20 budget.
Council cabinet papers this week revealed that the predicted overspend is 1.38% of the approved budget of £417m.
Overspends of £5.4m in children’s services and a £1.6m on the council’s cost savings programme, with small underspends predicted in some areas.
The council report said “It should be noted that no assumption has been made at this stage about the use of the contingency budget of £2.2m.
“Nonetheless, this forecast is clearly of concern for the council.
“There has been increased reporting rigour throughout the organisation and as such, the current position has been identified and understood a lot earlier than would have been the case in previous years, which provides more time to develop further management actions to mitigate the overspend position in order to successfully balance 2019-20 budget.”
