Council cuts deficit by dipping into contingency funds

Council leader Daniel Cowan said the authority was "moving in the right direction"

A council has managed to cut its forecasted deficit from £8.1m to £5.6m by dipping into contingency funds.

Southend-on-Sea City Council's latest financial report found it had drawn on £3m.

Some of the funding included £250,000 to cover a drop in parking income, blamed on a delay in implementing evening seafront car parking charges.

Labour council leader Daniel Cowan said it showed the overspend was moving in the right direction but the Conservative group leader warned taking cash from reserves was not a long-term solution.

The financial report also showed the council's pier and foreshore team had a project overspend of £38,000 due to the cost of putting on extra events and a fall in visitors due to poor weather.

Mr Cowan said the council did not need to move towards issuing a section 114 notice - which would effectively declare bankruptcy.

"The stage before that is asking for additional exceptional financial support from the government and this is not being considered," he explained.

"However, we must remain vigilant and respond positively to the financial risks that the local government sector is experiencing."

'For emergencies'

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the council was feeling the pressure of providing social services and had drawn on £1m from adult social care reserves along with £1.63m from children's social care reserves.

This followed an increased demand for special educational needs transport and additional "exceptionally high-cost children's residential placements".

However, Conservative group leader James Courteney said: "They are taking one-off money and putting it into the revenue budget, which doesn't solve the problem of the money they've overspent... at some point we will run out of reserves, which are for emergencies."