Weymouth and Portland Borough Council has been tasked with closing a potential budget gap of £1.2m by the start of the next financial year

Experts provided an update on the latest budget forecasts and outlined their process for setting the budget at a Scrutiny and Performance Committee meeting.

Weymouth and Portland Borough Council has been tasked with closing a potential budget gap of £1.2m by the start of the next financial year.

Head of financial services at the borough council, Julie Strange, said she was confident the budget gap will be closed.

She said: “We still need to agree with budget holders but from our initial look combined with some of the income generation we do with treasury management, we actually feel that we are down to finding £10,000 in order to balance the budget for next year.

“Bearing in mind it is only October that is a really good place to be in so we are quite pleased. We have got to this point partly because we were proactive last year and made savings ahead of when we needed them. It’s not complete doom and gloom at this stage.”

She explained that the council will look to a financial settlement from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to help balance the remainder of the budget.

She added: “We do still have to wait for some very large items to be confirmed, we have the financial settlement which comes out just before Christmas but we understand from the technical consultation that DCLG have issued, that they are looking to honour the four year settlement we signed up to two years ago. We weren’t quite sure but they have confirmed that it is likely to be honoured. I think that ties quite a large amount of the budget down for next year.”

Despite a challenging financial environment, a report raised at the meeting says the borough council has a “very good track record” of balancing its budget. Savings have been made through the partnership between Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, and West and North Dorset district councils. Since 2010 senior management posts at Dorset Councils Partnership have been slashed from 76 to 17. Overall the total workforce (including senior managers) has reduced from 730 to 514.

Ms Strange added: “Looking at staffing overall, there is a 30% reduction in management posts from when we were three separate organisations.

“That level of efficiency has enabled us to balance the budget over the years without significantly effecting the level of service we provide.”