BRADFORD Council has overspent on its budget by £6 million in the first half of this financial year.

The adult services department saw the biggest overspend at £5.2m.

However, the Council’s director of finance said "stringent measures" were being taken to balance the budget.

On Thursday a report into the Council’s mid-year financial position will be discussed by members of the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee in City Hall.

It says the adult services budget issue is mainly down to a £3.9m forecast overspend on purchased care, including a £1.4m overspend on older people due to "non achievement of budgeted savings."

Other departments to miss budgets were children’s services, where there was a £3.1m overspend caused mainly by increases in the number and cost of children in Council care, and sports facilities, which overspent by £900,000 due to "higher than budgeted staffing costs and lower than budgeted income."

The report also reveals that the Council has £13.8m in unallocated "contingency" reserves.

Council tax collection is up on last year with the Council having collected £97.9m (50.36 per cent) of the value of Council tax bills, compared with £93.2m (50.28 per cent) at the same point last year.

But business rates will this year be £2.5m less than budgeted. The report says the shortfall was mainly caused by “higher than expected reductions in rateable values from some city centre areas due to the relocation of footfall to The Broadway.”

Bradford Council is in the process of making large budget cuts due to Government austerity policies.

On this, the report says: "The balance continues to be seen as potentially inadequate by both the Director of Finance and the Council’s External Auditors given Government's fiscal policies that will reduce Council net spending from £400m in 2015/16 to £300m by 2021.”

Stuart McKinnon-Evans, the local authority's director of finance, said: "The Council is forecasting that spend will be £6m above the approved budget of £378m, which is a slight improvement from the first quarter of the financial year.

"However, we are taking stringent measures across all departments to bring us under budget by the end of the financial year."