THE local authority potentially overspent on their budget by £7million, a council meeting heard.

At a West Dunbartonshire Council meeting recently, it was revealed that the authority's budget for the year 2023/24 has potentially overrun by £7.115 million.

Laurence Slavin, chief officer for resources announced at the full council meeting that the accounts were being sent for audit and there was one main issue.

He detailed that the council had overspent £4millon on education, £2.5millon on roads and neighbourhoods and £1.1 million on resources.

The sums were then broken down into the main reasons for overspending.

At the meeting, Slavin said: “The education variance is predominantly due to the cost of specialist education provision and day residential placement costs which are experiencing daily average rate increases of circa 30% over the course of the year.

“For roads and neighbourhoods, there are a range of reasons including an increase in the cost of plant hire, street lighting and transport costs. As well as increases in specialist repairs, maintenance and higher budgets for overtime costs.”

For resources, Slavin said a change in a process for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had a ‘knock-on’ effect.

It is understood that of the £7.115million overspend approximately £5.5 million is being treated as ‘unforeseen’.

Following the meeting, Councillor Gordon Scanlan, SNP group leader, revealed his fellow councillors are considering how to hold this to account.

He said: “The reactionary Labour resignation came at the same meeting in which the public discovered a 5.5 million pound 'unforeseen' overspend by WDC under the watch of the Labour administration which will significantly impact the coming budget in March.

“This will only inflict further pain on our communities, further exacerbating Labour’s financial black hole they have created for WDC.

“The SNP group are considering our options on how best to hold this unacceptable oversight to account and find a path forward.”

Leader of the council Martin Rooney has responded to the unaudited accounts stating it is because of factors ‘outwith the council's control'.

Rooney said: “The 2023/24 budget is a projection based on assumptions factoring in the available information when setting the budget and it is not uncommon for this to change over the course of the year.

“This is due to factors outwith the council’s control including rising inflation, increased energy costs and, as we have seen in 2023/24, large increases in demand for critical services. In addition, we have seen a reduction in income intensified by the cost of living crisis.

“West Dunbartonshire Council has been continually underfunded by the Scottish Government over a number of years, and I will continue to urge them to take urgent action to address this so we can work together to deliver a balanced budget for West Dunbartonshire and its communities.

“When Labour took over the council administration in May 2022, we were left with a forecast funding gap of £11.6m for 2023/24 which increased to over £21m by December.”

Labour had previously resigned following the August meeting however they have again formed the administration of the council after a coalition failed to come forward.