Bexley Council is currently forecasting a £2.184m overspend for August 2025, according to the Revenue Budget Monitoring report presented at a Public Cabinet meeting on Thursday 23 October 2025.
The report, presented by Deputy Director Ms Morris, notes that the Adult Social Care and Public Health Directorate is forecasting the largest overspend at £3.621m, followed by Children and Education at £1.344m, and Finance, HR, Customer & Digital at £0.767m.
The forecast overspend was an improvement from the previous monitoring period. Councillor David Leaf, Deputy Leader of the Council/Cabinet Member for Resources, commented that this improvement was partly due to the work underway to contain spending and closely track budgets.
According to the report, the overspend in Adult Social Care and Public Health is primarily due to higher than anticipated placement activity. The directorate's budget is based on an average unit cost per week that allows for 3,224 placements across all types of care. However, current trends indicate a forecast of 3,522 placements for the year, 298 more than planned, resulting in an expected overspend of £5.104m. The balance of the adverse movement relates to several smaller variances across all other types of provision, with Link Line being the largest at £0.225m.
Councillor Leaf said that this type of position was not uncommon in local government, and that Bexley's position was stronger than a number of other local authorities.