A crisis in social services forced Kirklees Council to spend millions more than it planned last year.
Senior councillors will be asked to note a £2.7m overspend in 2016/17 due to extra investment in children’s services and demand for adults’ and children’s services.
In October last year the council’s children’s services were rated ‘inadequate’ and put into special measures .
Within weeks the cabinet member responsible, Clr Erin Hill, revealed £450,000 was to be used to bring in a team of agency social workers to help overhaul the service.
Trade union Unison has claimed Kirklees is spending more than £5m on agency workers in children’s social services.
The full cost of the reconfiguration, following government intervention, is yet to be calculated.
The council says the “significant extra spending” in social services will be partially offset by cuts in other areas.
A report to the council’s Cabinet highlights the £2.7m overspend is on a total revenue budget of £311.7m.
Council leader Clr David Sheard said: “We have continued to invest heavily, especially in children’s services as we strive for rapid improvement.
“The overspend is less than 1% and is covered by reserves.
“At the same time we have continued to invest in early intervention and prevention to reduce demand on services in future and will continue to invest in redesigning services to ensure they can be delivered effectively.”
In February Clr Sheard said there was a risk that Kirklees’ reserves would run dry by September 2018.
He predicted the council would have to stop providing many services, except for social care.
The latest report to the Cabinet show the reserves have depleted from £113m in April last year to £90 million at the end of March 2017.
The council says “the vast majority” of the £90m is already earmarked to be spent on restructuring the council over the next four years.
Clr Sheard added: “The report demonstrates that we are continuing to invest in services affecting our most vulnerable residents while achieving the savings required because of cuts to our budget.
“The financial challenges are still significant. We have a planned net savings requirement this year of £54m and – as people asked us to do – we have sensibly drawn down reserves to help redesign our services so we concentrate on delivering the right things in the best way we can afford in the future.”
