Council headed for £8million overspend?

By John Hill on December 2, 2009 12:05 PM |

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Tower Hamlets Council has warned its overspend for the year could approach £8million.

At a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny committee last night, officers predicted a general fund overspend of £3.74million and a housing overspend of as much as £4million, based on spending up to September.

This includes an £800,000 overspend its own buildings at Mulberry Place and Anchorage House, and the previously-revealed £280,000 advertising shortfall for council paper East End Life.

The chief financial officer has warned that the "financial information is of pressing importance and should be considered by cabinet at the earliest opportunity". He also observes that cabinet should "also consider the performance information on an urgent basis". Cabinet is due to meet tonight (Wednesday).

The authority is reportedly not meeting several performance targets, such as the provision of affordable homes and the reduction in schools with significant numbers of failing grades in English and Maths. In all, only 14 of 41 performance indicators are on track to meet end-of-year targets.

Net additional homes provided has been provisionally set at 661 for 2009/10, behind the 1,499 estimate and the 2,999 target. The number of affordable homes delivered is provisional 476, behind the 844 estimate and the 1,688 target.

The council puts these difficulties down to delays in schemes, as well as developers going into receivership and facing funding difficulties.

However, it said: "A high number of completions are expected to be delivered from a number of projects in the last six months of this year. Following completion of end year verification, the target of 2,999 [for net additional homes] is expected to be met."

However, a provisional total of eight schools are expected to push less than 55 per cent of students to Level Four or above in both English and Maths at Key Stage Two. The council had initially hoped this would apply to only one. Improvements to A-level attainment and a reduction in obesity among Year Six students are described as areas in which the "direction of travel is deteriorating".

The council expects to meet targets in areas such as overall employment rate, the reduction of arson incidents, the provision of advice and information for carers, and the resolution of cases in which its housing services were approached by citizens who considered themselves homeless.