DORSET Council overspent its budget by just under £5 million in its first operating year, newly released figures have revealed.

The council has published its annual accounts for the 2019/20 financial year.

The report showed an overspend of the council’s service budgets of £20.46 million, which was offset by a £15.47m underspend in the financing and central budgets - resulting in an overall overspend of £4.98m. Council bosses said the overspend had been expected and was forecast throughout the year.

It was Dorset Council’s first year of operation since the merger of the six councils that previously acted in the area into one singular authority follow a Local Government Reorganisation (LGR). The LGR took place in April of last year in an attempt to streamline operations.

Through the LGR, the council was able to significantly reduce staffing costs, saving around £10 million.

Several senior officers were made redundant to achieve this as part of the council’s initiative to streamline management structures to cut costs and protect frontline services.

Councillor Peter Wharf, Deputy Leader for Corporate Development and Change, said: “We always knew that streamlining our management structures by making six councils into one would reap us long term financial gains, but that we needed to meet the one-off cost of doing this, in order to protect frontline services.

"Unfortunately, in this one specific case, our costs were higher than expected because of the way the Local Government Pension Scheme is set up, allowing individuals to transfer private pensions into the local government scheme. Legally, we had no choice but to honour this. It’s important to note that the costs outlined in the report do not reflect the amount we have directly paid these individuals.

"As set out in the Council Plan, we are committed to being open, accessible and accountable, and we feel that by being honest about our exit packages and salary costs we are being as transparent as possible."

Dorset Council has set a net budget of £304 million for the 2020/21 financial year. This will be made up of £5 million from general grants, £47 million from business rates and £252 million from council tax.

The full report can be found on the Dorset Council website.