THE city council's top finance official has delivered a stark warning that persistent budget overspends are "not sustainable".
New figures reveal that two of the council's most important departments, children and families and health and social care, failed to deliver a balanced budget last year, for the second year in a row.
The education department overspent by £4.1 mill
ion, largely as a result of the pressure on fostering services, while the health and social care department went £4.97m over budget. The new Lib Dem/SNP administration did manage to balance the books overall, however, with a £1.34m surplus.
Finance director Donald McGougan said: "The final position is after the application of one-off monies and savings totalling over £12m, plus receipt of back-dated council tax income.
"This is the second year in which, in particular, health and social care and children and families have not delivered a balanced budget and have been dependent upon one-off measures. This position is clearly not sustainable in the current year and beyond."
City finance leader Councillor Gordon Mackenzie said: "We've got to keep a tight hold on the purse strings to maintain that progress, get better at predicting changes, such as increasing numbers in foster care and build up reserves to deal with the unexpected."
The full article contains 223 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
