underspend

A budget monitoring report submitted to the council's cabinet in April this year forecast an underspend of PS1,654,000 for the year.

It comes as it was confirmed that Shropshire Council had an underspend of PS121,000 last year.

A council has been "careful" about where it has spent money, according to a senior councillor who has defended an underspend at the authority despite millions of pounds' worth of cuts.

Since devolution, the Scottish Government's budget is capped so an "underspend" is reported which can be carried forward to subsequent years.

For the year ending April 2019, the fund had an underspend of PS247,000.

Tory finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said: "The Finance Secretary is always complaining about not having enough money to spend but today we learn there is an underspend from last year's budget of nearly half-a-billion pounds.

At a meeting of the council's environment and housing committee last Thursday, officials blamed unforeseen delays in some major projects - in Raploch and Claish Farm, Callander - for the underspend.

Community assets boss Karen Brownlie will tell councillors that more than PS400,000 of the underspend is connected to projects for Dumfries and Morton cemeteries, playing field drainage in Eastriggs and an inclusive play park project in Dumfries.

A report to next Friday's cabinet meeting reveals an underspend on its revenue budget of PS11.2m.

BIRMINGHAM City Council has managed to underspend on its budget after a year of dire financial warnings.

He added: "Although you finished the year with a balanced budget and, in fact, an underspend, you have these huge currents of finance underlying it which still pose massive questions and, in particular, for the public who are being asked to pay extra precepts for social care, to see social care services underspend and that it is not being allowed to reinvest and improve social care is deeply concerning."

As of January, there was an underspend of some PS2 million in Aberdeen City Council schools on the Scottish Government's flagship Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) project.