BURY Council is projected to go over budget by almost £3.5million.

The £3.491million overspend his year is attributed to the difficult situation the council faced in the latest financial year and an increase in demand for services.

The council is planning to continue its cost cutting measures to keep its spending down and is aided by a number of grants.

Eamonn O’Brien, cabinet member for finance and housing and St Mary’s Ward councillor, said the council’s forecast may not affect the day to day lives of people in Bury but would reduce the council’s flexibility and could affect future generations.

He said: “The biggest impact is it puts pressures on our reserves.

“So that means we have less flexibility to attempt the big changes or event contingencies and aims which you might need the reserves for, like the floods.

“We struggled for quite a long time to get that money from the government and we’re still waiting.

“If you don’t deal with the overspend you have to draw it from the reserves.

“The day to day life might not be affected but it’s about having a sound financial bases for future years and generations and you put that at risk if you don’t deal with it.”

Following the Local Government Finance Settlement in 2016/17, many councils found themselves out of pocket and since 2010, the council has had to cope with a loss of £97 million in government funding.

Last year the council began a number of spending controls including a recruitment freeze, releasing agency staff and ceasing overtime in most cases.

As well as these internal measures, department directors were tasked with overhauling their areas to reduce spending to make them sustainable.

The council’s Children, Young People and Culture Department, is facing going over budget by £3.282million, with spending on children’s social care making up the bulk of that figure. Some residential children’s placements cost as much as £8,000 a week.

The Communities and Wellbeing budget is expected to exceed its target by £1.381million with increased demand playing a large part in the overspend.

Cllr O’Brien said: “There’s an increase in demand as well. This is down to an ageing population. We have more people with more complex needs. People are living longer which is great but we have to care for them for longer.

“Nationally, safeguarding and looked after children numbers are going up. In Bury we’ve gone from 300 to 350 looked after children and part of the work going on is figuring out why.”

Cllr O’Brien feels some of the increased pressures on the council are a result of the austerity measures put in place by the government to tackle to national deficit.

He said: “It’s a consequence of austerity measures that push people into precarious situations.

“People can be just about managing and more and more they are falling into categories of vulnerability, visiting food banks and being unable to look after themselves. Each case has its own complexities.”

The council has been able to make savings of almost £400,000 by not filling vacancies and £3.847 million of funding has come from the Improved Better Care Fund to help the council and health services work together.

The overspend was due to be discussed by the council’s Cabinet yesterday evening.