BRADFORD Council has managed to reduce its predicted overspend by more than £9 million during the past year according to a financial report.

The local authority was expected to spend £10.5 million above its budget in the first report for 2017.

But a paper produced for the council’s executive board, which is due to meet on Tuesday, said the figure fell to just a £600,000 overspend.

And a recent study of local authorities by consultancy firm Impower rated Bradford as tenth best in the country for achieving value for money.

The study looked at evidence that better outcomes were being achieved for less money and defined productivity as the value per pound spent.

It will be the third financial monitoring report presented to the executive this year and details the council’s financial position up to March 2018.

But a council spokesman said that despite the progress, there will be significant overspends of £6.4m in health and wellbeing and £3.9m in children’s services, due to an increase in demand for services which help vulnerable people.

The local authority has been forced to make savings in other areas to meet the costs of this growing demand.

Council leader Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe warned that savings were becoming harder to achieve as funding is slashed.

She said: “Due to the government cuts to our district, this council has already had to find cuts of over £256m since 2010.

“We also have rising demands for services, particularly in children’s and adults’ social care as seen across the country, so it’s a huge challenge and one which grows with each passing year of government austerity.

“The combination of increasing demand and our lower level of council tax compared to neighbouring authorities makes it even more difficult to fill the gap left by government cuts.

“It’s pleasing to hear from an independent source that we use council taxpayer’s money well.

“We will continue to do so to protect local services as best we can.”

The council report shows that staff redundancy costs have been brought down in the past year as departments work to reduce the number of people they employee while also minimising the amount of compulsory redundancies.

Figures show that since 2010 the local authority has reduced the number of full-time equivalent staff it employs by more than 2,200 but of this number just 143 people were given compulsory redundancy.

The report also reveals how Bradford services performed in comparison to other authorities.

The children’s social care department performed better than other councils.

But despite the good performance, the paper also describes and increase in the number of looked after children and other pressures on social care services.

This increase in demand is expected to put a strain on council resources.

The executive board will meet at City Hall to discuss the report.