BRADFORD Council overspent by £6.1 million in the first half of this financial year.

A report being presented to the Council’s decision making Executive tomorrow will show that the first six months since April has seen huge overspends in the Health and Wellbeing, Children’s Services and Place departments.

It says this is partly due to big overspends in waste disposal costs, street lighting, and the high cost of placements for looked after children.

There was also an overspend of £1 million on the Social Work staffing budget due to “difficult to fill vacant posts being covered by agency staff.”

The in-house residential home budget was also overspent by £500,000 due to “the use of overtime, agency and casual staffing to cover vacancies and sickness.”

The Council’s budget for the financial year is £358.1 million.

In total there has been an overspend of £13.7m, although part of this was offset by underspends in other departments, including £2m in forecast lower redundancy costs than expected.

The report adds: “Any Council wide overspend at year end will have to be funded from reserves.”

The Executive will meet at 10.30am in City Hall.