North Northamptonshire Council expected to exceed budget by over £11m

The Conservative-controlled authority announced spending controls in January

An overspend of more than £11m has been predicted against a council's £339m budget for 2023-24.

North Northamptonshire Council cited a predicted £30.9m overspend by Northamptonshire Children's Trust, with the council picking up £13.6m of that.

The remainder will be paid by West Northamptonshire Council.

The large bill is in part due to the high costs and demand for placements for children in care, which has incurred costs of £24m over its budget.

A large chunk of the Conservative-controlled authority's overspend also comes from the £12.8m third-party payments to independent residential and nursing homes.

The news comes a little over a month after North Northamptonshire Council said it was planning to raise council tax by the 4.99% maximum amount permitted, to cover the rising costs of social care and the effects of inflation.

'A challenging time'

The council has been operating under spending controls since January.

Lloyd Bunday, the council's executive member for finance and transformation, said: "We recognise that it is and will continue to be a challenging time, but we will be working hard to balance our finances while maintaining vital services.

"Everybody accepts that the biggest risk to this council is the demand-led services and, unfortunately, we have a finite amount of money that we can spend and finite resources, and I think we've got to work on that and encourage the Children's Trust to work on that as well.

"It is worrying - it's got to be mitigated and it's got to be delivered."

The overall projected position for the general fund is a net overspend of £11.036m, made up of a £27m overspend in services and £16m clawed back in savings across council budgets and money coming in from business rates.

North Northamptonshire Council is one of 19 local authorities in England to receive "exceptional financial support" from the government.