TOO much money is still being spent by the council, placing increasing pressure on the authority’s finances as it struggles to deal with an unprecedented cut in Government funding.

The latest projections show the authority is expected to overspend by £2.3 million this financial year, coupled with facing a £3 million bill due to liabilities resulting from the scrapped Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

Adult social care and children’s services, which will already see a large reduction in funding next year, are the hardest hit, with a combined projected overspend of almost £6 million.

Other departments have managed to spend less than budgeted, resulting in the final figure, but the projected overspend has increased by more than £103,000 since last month.

Cabinet has already agreed cuts of nearly £9 million this year and aims to save £65 million over the length of the current administration.

Cllr Matt Davis, leader of the Consevative opposition, said the council must “get real” about costs.

He said: “The truth is that for years now social care and children’s services have been wilfully under-budgeted and overspends have been pretty regular in recent years.

“If something is going to cost a certain amount of money, that’s how much you should budget for.

“It is perfectly possible to address this overspend without any reduction in services.”

He added that the Labour leadership was not forced to cut services in specific areas, saying restrictions on spending had been lifted.

Cllr Davis also questioned why taxpayers money was being spent on the judicial review of the BSF decision.

He said the investment was not secured because the project in Waltham Forest was badly organised, as proved by the fact that similar schemes which started at the same in other areas had been completed.

Cllr Robbins has accused the Government of deception over the extent of funding cuts.

He said: “There is no getting away from the fact that these cuts mean we will have to stop providing some of the vital services that our community rely on.

"At the end of the day it is our residents who will suffer and the Government should have the decency to be straight with people about the true scale of the cuts.”

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