A review earlier this year said the council’s situation was not uncommon and a national issue
Wirral Council’s offices at Alice Ker Square in Birkenhead(Image: Liverpool Echo)
A Wirral Council department is expected to go over budget by £8.1m due to growing demand for its services. A report said difficult decisions would be needed throughout the year to balance the books.
Ahead of an adult social care and public health committee, the report said there was a potential overspend in the department of £8.1m by March 2026, around 5% of their total budget of £156m. Adult social care is one of the biggest costs to the local authority’s budget, hoovering up more than half along with children’s services.
Luckily for the local authority, the situation facing children’s services is looking better this financial year with that department expected to be £1m under budget. This is largely due to a big drop in demand for children’s residential placements.
The report said it was “financially imperative” the council balances things to avoid issuing a Section 114 notice effectively declaring bankruptcy. Wirral Council narrowly avoided this fate earlier in the year if not for a £20m government bailout and a further £7.5m has been given for this current financial year.
Over the next year, council officers warned there were challenging targets ahead as well as “a persistently demanding environment particularly due to the increased demands in social care.” Twice a month council departments will be called in to justify their budgets to finance director Matthew Bennett.
In adult social care, one of the biggest pressures is the costs of supporting older people in care. Hospital discharges as well as additional support needs linked to that are also contributing.
While demand has gone up, the council report said higher cost placements and increasingly complex needs was driving the increase. The report said this was driven by increased care package costs and additional support now required.
The council said a £1.3m overspend in domiciliary care is “primarily attributable to an increase in the number of individuals receiving support,” adding: “This reflects our ongoing commitment to enabling people to remain in their own homes for as long as possible, thereby reducing the need for admission into residential or nursing care settings.”
Rising demand has also been seen in mental health and disability services driving a nearly £3.2m overspend. These people are often in social care “requiring more intensive and often more costly interventions.”
To combat some of these rising costs, there are savings targets of nearly £5.5m for managing demand, reviews held every 12 weeks, and the council is working with the NHS closely. However the report said: “This is currently proving incredibly challenging due to the financial pressures within the [NHS] and the measures they have implemented to try and manage demand.”
£10.7m of savings were approved in the council’s budget but only £6.6m is on track to be delivered. In February, a review of adult social services by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy said the council’s situation was “not uncommon and is a national issue” and the biggest risk the council faced was growing demand.
It said: “Nationally many authorities are struggling with high workforce costs including high levels of agency staff, and costly and insufficient care market capacity. In Wirral workforce issues are well managed and market costs and sufficiency are currently manageable, although there are quality issues to address in the market.”
CIPFA added: “The service is addressing many of the right things such as a three conversations model of care, redesign of the front door, changing the criteria for extra care housing and supported living, tackling the reviews backlog, and reviewing high cost packages. It has more to do to build its approach to effective prevention to achieve strategic shifts away from residential and nursing care.”