High demand for temporary housing and social services continue to cause problems, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Enfield Civic Centre and (inset) Tim Leaver

Enfield Council continues to face significant financial “pressure” thanks to continuing high demand for temporary housing and social services.

The latest financial report, presented to a cabinet meeting yesterday (Wednesday 13th), shows the council is facing a £9.4million revenue budget deficit this year unless further savings can be found.

The revenue budget is the amount of money the council has allocated for spending on services during the financial year. Back in February, Enfield Civic Centre approved a budget of £318.5m but, as of September, it is now forecasting a total spend of £354m.

This £35m deficit has been reduced to £9.4m thanks to previously earmarked reserves and the flexible use of capital receipts, but unless the remaining sum can be cut before the end of the financial year the council’s risk reserve will need to be further reduced, having already been slashed in recent years.

The overspending is being blamed on the higher-than-expected cost of social services, with £5.8m extra spending on looked-after children, £8m on housing benefit subsidies, and £7.4m on temporary accommodation.

Tim Leaver, the council’s cabinet member for finance, discussed the figures at the cabinet meeting and said: “Basically we are all aware of the pressure on us as a council and we feel it in all of our departments.

“We know we’ve had continued inflation, though that’s beginning to get under control, and we’ve got the issues around temporary accommodation. The forecast till the end of the year is a £9.4m variance against the overall budget.”

Olga Bennett, a director of finance, added: “It’s really important for us to continue to drive that pressure down for the rest of the year.”

The council has also revealed a forecast £50m underspend on its capital programme. The capital budget is the council’s financial plan for long-term investments in physical assets such as buildings, land, vehicles and infrastructure.

This year’s proposed budget was £357m, but the council is now forecasting a spend of £306m, a reduction of 20%.

Cllr Leaver explained that the majority of the underspend was due to further delays to Meridian Water, a 20-year regeneration programme to deliver 10,000 homes in Edmonton, as well as the council’s housing revenue account being “slightly behind”.

He said the council planned to “roll” the £51m variance on capital spending forward and that this “big number” was part of the council’s commitment to “investing in the borough”.

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