Dorset County Council is facing an overspend of more than £9m this year, councillors will be told today – as it is revealed that agency social workers cost the authority millions of pounds.

An update on the council’s finances states that there was an overall overspend of £2.1m in the year 2016/17. 

Children’s services alone had an overspend of £6m, which included a £2.4m overspend on agency social workers. Dorset has faced an issue in staffing social worker posts, with 58 agency workers being used at the peak of the crisis in January. Thanks to a recruitment strategy, this was reduced to 40 by the end of May, and the report states that this figure is expected to be just 10 by the end of the summer.

The Dorset Echo asked what the total spend on agency social workers for 2016/17 was but the county council was unable to provide the figure.

Looking ahead to the current financial year, a further £6m overspend is forecast for the children in care budget.

The report states: “Traditionally, about 75 per cent of children have been placed with foster carers who are directly engaged and managed by the county council. The financial planning for the budget was based on that trend continuing, with around 300 children expected to be placed with in-house foster carers. However the number of foster carers engaged by the county council has actually decreased. This has resulted in children having to be placed with much more expensive, agency foster carers, who are currently accommodating around 100 children.”

On agency social worker costs for the current financial year, the report adds: “Agency costs are expected to be in excess of budget for the first quarter whilst new, permanent staff are due to start employment during the spring and early summer. The overspend being incurred in these early months is not forecast to be recovered.

“Options could be considered as to what measures could be taken to reduce agency staff numbers sooner, alongside a risk assessment of the impact on the social work service. Unless this happens and quick decisions are taken it is likely that an overspend of £0.5m will be incurred.”

The report, set to be discussed by a meeting of the cabinet today, Wednesday, states that the transformative Forward Together programme is ‘critical’ to the local authority’s financial performance – and its viability.

Writing in the report, chief financial officer Richard Bates concludes that there are three difficult years ahead financially: 2017/18 where DCC is overspending on budgets and falling behind on savings, 2018/19 where there is no confirmed FT plan and 2019/20, which has a significant savings target mainly due to the scrapping of the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) – financial support handed to local authorities from central government.

The report adds: “There are considerable challenges ahead.”