Council's planned £9m overspend sparks criticism

Councillors discussed the council's financial position at county hall

Devon County Council is expecting to overspend by more than £9m next year.

Senior councillors were told at a cabinet meeting the authority would also have a deficit of £36.6m in services to children with special educational needs.

There were angry exchanges at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said.

Adult social care and children’s services account for the majority of the overspend.

Conservative councillor Phillip Twiss outlined the figures and said the council was in a much better position than it had been this time last year when it was looking at a £35 million overspend.

He said savings could be made to create a £10 million "safety valve" to support the special educational needs deficit.

“This will signal to the Department for Education that we mean business and we will deal with it,” he said.

Liberal Democrat leader Julian Brazil said it was “incredibly frustrating” to hear that Devon’s problems were caused by Covid, inflation and the war in Ukraine when every council in the country was facing the same pressures.

He said: “If we continue along these lines of trying to pretend that everything is okay, we will go bankrupt.”

Independent councillor Frank Biederman added: “We are going to have to make savings, and it will be the most vulnerable people in our society that suffer.”