Herefordshire Council has balanced its books for the seventh year running, a meeting of its cabinet was told.
A report to cabinet last Thursday on the final revenue and capital position for the last financial year highlighted that services had faced another 12 months of severe financial pressure.
“The council’s position is in contrast to many other local authorities across the country, which are announcing major overspends for the last financial year,” reported the council’s director of resources David Powell.
“However, Herefordshire will face tough choices in this and coming years as a result of the overall cuts in public services needed to address the national deficit.”
Overall, Herefordshire Council achieved a balanced budget due to recovery plans and spending controls across all directorates, reductions in borrowing costs of £644,000 and a reduced pay award resulted in a £553,000 saving.
The council had safeguarded reserves of £5.4 million at the end of the last financial year to help it cope with future funding pressures.
On adult social care services, there had been a £2.7million overspend on older people, people with physical and learning disabilities and mental health needs.
There was also an overspend of £975,000 on the winter roads maintenance budget funded partly by council reserves. But savings of almost £1 million in waste management were achieved after the successful introduction of wheeled bins for recycling last year.
While the children’s services budget was close to balancing, there was an £889,000 overspend in safeguarding children, as the numbers of children in agency fostering and residential placements showed an increasing trend.
However, this was largely mitigated by savings in other areas of children and young peoples’ services.
In many other areas there were efficiencies, the cabinet was told. Culture and leisure spending was reduced by £254,000, ICT service updates saved £619,000, the Herefordshire Connects transformation project yielded £700,000 in savings, the benefits and exchequers service saved £494,000, human resources saved £222,000, housing services reduced spending by £52,000 and there were savings of £180,000 in customer services, corporate programmes and communications.
There was a capital receipts reserve of £13.3 million to fund future improvements to the Rotherwas business park, the new livestock market, affordable housing and improvements to smallholdings owned by the council.
The final outturn on expenditure on major capital projects last year included construction costs for the new Riverside School (£2.5m) and the Hereford Academy (£5.3m) in Hereford, the Minster School in Leominster (£11.7m), the Rotherwas Access Road (£0.7m), the Ross-on-Wye flood alleviation scheme (£2.3m), road and footway maintenance (£10.5m), Rotherwas futures (£2.3m), the purchase of offices to bring about the integration of health and council services (£4.3m) and affordable housing grants (£1m).