A THIRD of Thurrock’s estimated deficit is down to over-claiming covid grants, a “flabbergasted” councillor has revealed reports the Local Democracy Reporter.
The increasing cost of children’s services and homelessness have added to a predicted budget overspend by Thurrock Council of £3.1 million for 2024/25 .
However, at a corporate overview and scrutiny meeting on Tuesday, it emerged the council has to pay back £1.2 million in covid grant it claimed for loss of fees and charges.
Highlighting the cost in the forecast revenue and capital outturn report, Ben Maney, chairman of the committee, said: “A not insignificant amount of the overspend – £1.2 million – is as a result of an overestimation in respect of the covid grant. That’s quite a significant overestimation. How did we arrive at that? What due diligence was done?
“It’s not a minor variance is it? It’s quite a significant amount and I’m just a bit flabbergasted at how that overestimation was arrived at.”
In response, Dawn Calvert, Thurrock’s chief financial officer, said: “During the covid period councils were allowed to claim for their loss of fees and charges income during the covid period. It was quite a tricky task to do in terms of estimating.
“What’s happened here is that claim has been made for £1.2 million over what we’ve actually lost. It’s hard for me to say why that happened as I wasn’t here but it was a very difficult scheme to forecast. ”The council claimed £2.3 million under the scheme and expects the Government to claw back the over payment. This will be funded from reserves according the report.
Mr Maney said: “The overspend would be considerably more if there wasn’t a reliance on reserves. The reserves are there for a reason and you can only draw down on them so much.
“The overspend would be a lot worse if it wasn’t for that reliance on reserves and that kind of unmasks the unhealthy position we are in .”
Ms Calvert said: “Reserves are there for a specific purpose and the agreement on reserves is that we use it for a one-off specific expenditure.
A number of these reserves, and I pick up on the children’s services, that grant money that we’ve received in has to be spent on specific areas. The reserves we are using are one-offs intended for that purpose.”
