By Ellis Butcher

COUNCIL bosses in South Lakeland have managed to reduce a £600,000 budget shortfall by half-a-million pounds in just three months.

In October, South Lakeland District Council forecast that the gap to a balanced budget by March 2019 could be more than £600,000.

But that figure has now been reduced to just £100,000, a meeting was told.

Cllr Andrew Jarvis, the cabinet member for finance, said the council’s financial position is now far more “healthy” than it was in autumn.

Cllr Jarvis, the Liberal Democrat member for Windermere, gave an update on SLDC budget position after the first nine months of the 2018 financial year at a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny committee in Kendal.

He said: “Overall we now have a £100,000 gap to a balanced budget and actions have continued to be taken over the last few months with the aim of closing that.

“Obviously, it is a much more healthy position than we were looking at three months ago.”

A report showed there has been a £39,000 overspend in the council’s finance department due to hiring agency staff for a “business critical post”.

There was also a £20,000 underspend due to councillors not claiming their allowances.

There was also an underspend of £15,000 in legal services due to vacant posts, a £44,000 underspend in information services, an £8,000 underspend in policy and performance, and a £12,000 underspend in the development manager and development implementation.

However, there was a £24,000 overspend in the council’s planning department – but a shortfall in income of £128,000.

That sum has shrunk from the £330,000 income shortfall forecast in October.

Cllr Jarvis said the council had worked “very closely” to close the gaps.