A ‘COMBINATION of unfortunate things’ has seen a council miss a savings target from setting up its own children’s homes and supported accommodation.

The council planned to save £1 million in costs it spent placing children in residential care by opening its own small children’s homes as well as supported accommodation for those leaving care.

But while Monmouthshire County Council has opened one, four-bedroom children’s home and two, two-bedroom specialist homes and a four-bedroom supported accommodation for care leavers three further facilities have been delayed.

Conservative opposition leader Councillor Richard John said those delays had costs tax payers £400,000 and asked for an explanation when the council’s first quarter financial report was presented to the October cabinet.

Green Party councillor, and cabinet member for social care, Ian Chandler said savings of “just over a million pounds” were planned this year including through expanding the council’s own foster care placements and opening the facilities.

Cllr Chandler said that was helping the council “deliver much better support and achieve the savings identified in individual business plans” but the “slippage” was due to the delays.

Difficulties in identifying and acquiring a property in Monmouth meant it hasn’t been able to open supported accommodation in the town while a supported accommodation property in Abergavenny and children’s home in Caldicot have been hit by building delays including to the tender and procurement process.

The Caldicot home is owned a by a social landlord, which has direct control of the project, while “unforeseen additional building work” has been required in Abergavenny.

“All these are a combination of unfortunate things but while we are confident that once all of these provisions are operational they will deliver the annual savings that we budget for in the individual business plans we won’t be able to realise the full savings for this financial year which is regrettable,” said Cllr Chandler.

The £400,000 figure is just short of the projected £464,000 overspend, against the council’s agreed £253m budget, expected at the end of the financial year based on spending from April to June.

Councillor Ben Callard the Labour cabinet member for finance said: “That is about a 0.2 per cent variance against the agreed revenue budget.”

The report shows only two of the council’s nine service areas are on course for an underspend against their agreed budges with the cabinet told the council will need to maintain tight financial discipline and controls on spending and ensure it brings forward its agreed savings to bring the budget back into line.

Cllr Callard warned the combined schools’ deficit, expected to hit £9.3m remains “a concern” for the council but said he was otherwise upbeat about its financial position.

The cabinet member said in previous years the council has seen in year overspends of “multiple millions of pounds particularly in health and social care” while he thought the council may have also “passed a peak in some of those demands on our services”.

Asked, by cabinet member Catrin Maby, if the budget position indicated savings and changes agreed in recent years were “working” in terms of addressing the council’s finances Cllr Callard said “it feels to me the work is starting to pay dividends in managing demand and spend across our services.”