BLAENAU Gwent will use less rainy day money than expected from council reserve pots to balance last year’s budget, councillors will be told.

At a meeting of the county borough council’s Corporate and Performance scrutiny committee on Tuesday, September 3 councillors will receive a report on the position of the 2023/2024 revenue budget as it stood at the end of the financial year on March 31.

The overall provisional outturn position across the whole council shows a surplus of £4.3 million has been made on its budget of £184.3 million for last year.

When the budget was set in February 2023, the council had agreed the need to use £4.2 million from specific reserves to balance the books in the face of the cost of living crisis.

The report explains that the “favourable variance” will drop after the money is moved around council accounts going: “to and from reserves.”

This includes transferring £1.4 million to specific reserves while £310,000 from general reserves which was used to fund free school meals direct payments during holidays, has been added to the budget.

Once all the transfers have been made the report says that “only” £820,000 from specific reserves will be needed.

The report goes on to explain that the better than expected budget position is due to a number of factors including better rates of Council Tax collection and staff vacancies being left unfilled.

The report said that a: “Surplus on Council Tax (is) £360,000 due to council collection rates exceeding budget.”

The Council Tax Reduction Scheme also ended up with a £700,000 surplus due to take up being: “lower than expected.”

The education portfolio posted a £380,000 surplus.

The report explains that this is mainly due to savings of £160,000 due to staff turnover and £140,000 on school transport.

The cost of early retirements was £80,000 and said to be “lower” than budgeted for.

There was also a surplus of £360,000 made by the council’s Social Services department.

Social Services saw losses of £1.1million for children looked after, £357,000 for children’s residential placements, £388,000 for fostering and £258,000 in legal fees – this was offset by surpluses in staff turnover, maximising grant funding and “higher than anticipated” payments for community care.

The environment department also posted a surplus of £750,000.

This was due to a £650,000 cost built into the budget to deal with the transfer of Silent Valley waste services back into the council, not being needed.

The council were also given an unexpected grant of £820,000 from the Welsh Government for universal free school meals.

These surpluses offset a loss of £590,000 in Housing services due to the need to provide temporary accommodation for people as well as £340,000 loss for the council as a corporate landlord.

The report explained that this is due to savings put forward in the budget from a reviews of council assets not being achieved during the year.

A further £110,000 was lost due to energy price hikes and vandalism affecting he council’s multi-storey car parks.

Accountancy service manager Gina Taylor said: “A number of ongoing cost pressures identified during 2023/2024 have been addressed as part of the budget setting process for 2024/2025.

“For continuing, new and emerging cost pressures budget holders will be required to produce action plans which will address the cost pressure during the year.”

Councillors will be asked to “challenge” and accept the report, note the application of reserves before it goes in front of the council’s Cabinet on Wednesday, September 4.