Councillors are set to take millions from town hall coffers to help fund care services.
Kirklees Cabinet members will be asked to agree to use £3.6m from reserves to manage higher than expected demand on looked after children and vulnerable adults.
And the practice of using reserves could well be used again in the future by the council as it struggles to balance budgets over the next three years.
Councillors will hear in a report to next week’s Cabinet that there is an overall net underspend of 0.2% for the first quarter of the year, totalling roughly £0.5 million.
The reporting on use of reserves in year is part of a refreshed approach to risk management. Cabinet Members will need to agree to the use of reserves.
Cabinet Member for Resources Clr Graham Turner said: “Our revenue spend is £324 million, and current predictions of a 0.2% underspend are good.
“But we have to be able to respond quickly to in year demand-led pressures, especially in areas such as this where we are using reserves sensibly to help us cope with the growing numbers of children being placed in accommodation outside Kirklees for their safety, and also where we have an increase in the number of older people receiving residential care and home care.’
“We will continue to review these pressures throughout the year and as part of our overall budget setting process. It is prudent to use reserves to cope with these unforeseen budget pressures, and is the very reason we carry reserves.”
The Council Budget Strategy, updated in July, forecasts more significant national funding reductions over the next three years, which added to other high level cost and income adjustments over the period, results in a revised council funding gap of £68m by 2017-18, before the use of general fund balances.
Using available “one-off” balances is part of the medium term budget strategy and is intended to buy the Council time to be able to plan ahead
for the scale of continuing budget reductions required over the 2015-18 period.
A report to Cabinet says that £27.3m of balances should be available to support this approach.
Cabinet members will consider the report at their meeting next Tuesday.
