Hertfordshire County Council’s forecast overspend of £6.2m is lower than in previous years, councillors have stressed, just days after staff were told to stop all “non-essential spending”.

Latest budget data, presented to the county council’s cabinet on Tuesday, forecasts a deficit of £6.2m by the end of this financial year.

And, as previously reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, deputy chief executive Scott Crudgington has now written to all county council budget holders asking them to avoid “non-essential” spending wherever possible.

He has acknowledged ongoing efforts to find savings, juggle “scarce budget” and to pivot services to meet increasing need “without the resources to match”.

placeholder image — Hertfordshire County Council

And he has asked them to “assess the urgency of new roles” – stressing that budgets are “the maximum amount of money available, not a spending target”.

But at the meeting of the county council’s cabinet on Tuesday, councillors appeared to be more upbeat about the council’s financial situation.

Executive member for resources and performance, Cllr Chris Lucas, stressed that the £6.2m figure was 0.5% of the council’s £1.2bn revenue budget.

And he suggested that the projected overspend – which is within the council’s £10m contingency – was lower than that forecast at the same point in previous years.

“The overall position of the net revenue budget of £1.2bn is forecast to overspend by £6.2m,” said Cllr Lucas. “That’s 0.5%, which is considerably better than where we were this time last year, under the previous administration. And I’d like to thank all officers for all their hard work in ensuring that the council’s finances are kept under tight control.

“This is no easy task, given the economic and political landscape that we find ourselves in. And the officers involved, all officers across the organisation, should be commended for all their hard work.”

And leader of the council, Cllr Steve Jarvis, said: “The overspend – and the overspend is clearly unwelcome – is a very small proportion of the budget and is significantly lower than has been the case in some previous years.”

At the meeting, Cllr Lucas also referenced the pressures on the High Needs Block funding, which supports Hertfordshire children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

It is forecast to overspend by £10.8m by the end of the year, leading to a cumulative deficit of £88.5m. Meanwhile, executive member for children’s social care, Cllr Anthony Rowland, referenced an increase of £400k in spending on looked-after children.

He pointed to an increase in the number of looked-after children in the county, particularly among younger children. But he also pointed to an upward trend in the number of those children who would be adopted and the significant increase in the number of children being placed in long-term kinship care.

He highlighted the council’s focus on creating additional in-house capacity, through specialist fostering and residential programmes, to ensure there were the right and appropriate homes.

And he said: “We are seeing an increase in our average cost of children looked after homes, but not at the rate we would otherwise have experienced, due to all the other initiatives underway. We have moved into a pressure position on the CLA budget due to increased CLA numbers exhausting some of the headroom that was put in the budget originally.

“And we are continuing to review and reflect on the modelling and how this will impact for future years.”

In response, Cllr Lucas said: “I think that highlights the departmental pressures that are on all of our care services. And I think that it is incumbent upon all of us to make sure that when we are offering those care services, we go for the best available service possible.

“But obviously we need to try and keep a close eye on the finances, as best as possible.”