A HARD-PRESSED council may have been overly ambitious in making cuts to social care “too quickly” a finance chief has admitted.

Monmouthshire County Council reported its adult social care services finished the last financial year £2.4 million over budget while children’s services came in £1.4m above its agreed allocation.

Despite those overspends the council still finished the 2024/25 financial year with a £1.2m surplus, which was a 0.6 per cent variance against the budget councillors had agreed in March 2024.

That was achieved despite the social services costs and other overspends related to additional learning needs, waste collections, home to school transport and homelessness and housing.

The council has taken various measures to address those costs and Councillor Ben Callard, the Labour cabinet member for finance, said the surplus had been achieved through its “financial discipline” including a recruitment freeze and receipt of additional grants late in the year from the Welsh Government.

But he warned the grant funding from the Welsh Government isn’t guaranteed in future and said the authority still faces financial pressures. The Llanfoist and Govilon member said: “It is important to recognise that over £3m of this is due to one-off unbudgeted grant funding received from the Welsh Government during the year.”

The latest update to the council’s medium term financial plan warns it faces a projected revenue budget shortfall of £13.6 million to fund day to day services in 2026/27 rising to £38m over the medium term by 2029/30.

Cllr Callard said the council has powers to address its spending and help manage predicted costs and told its performance and overview scrutiny committee: “If you are asking me will Monmouthshire County Council still be solvent in 2031? Yes, it will be.”

Since 2010 the council has made more than £83m in savings and “absorbed” more than £31m in cost pressures in the past two years.

Committee chair, Conservative Alistair Neill, questioned the overspends in social services and asked if the council had properly funded them, as he described the services going over budget “as almost a perennial problem”.

The Gobion Fawr councillor asked: “Are we structurally under representing the real cost of social care?”

Chief financial officer, and deputy chief executive, Peter Davies said: “We’ve faced some very challenging budget rounds, particularly in social care, and have looked to stand up some ambitious levels or reform and have learnt some lessons trying to push the bar too high, too quickly and have suffered from that in in-year overspends.”

But Mr Davies said early indications are similar levels of overspend aren’t being predicted this year. He also said part of managing the risk of overspending in social services was to have an identified reserve to dip into as the council had done.

The council had a savings target of £10.94m in its 2024/25 budget and achieved 81.6 per cent of those meaning the ongoing financial impact will have to be considered as part of budget monitoring throughout the year.

The committee was also told uncertainty remains over full funding for the rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions, which the council as a large employer must meet, but it had also put a contingency in the budget in case of the costs falling on it.