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Social services in Caerphilly County Borough could cost the council nearly £1 million more than originally thought in 2020/21, a council report has revealed.

The social services department at Caerphilly County Borough Council is projecting an overspend of £934,000 for 2020/2021, which is slightly offset by a £74,000 underspend in the transport budget.

Despite the large predicted overspend, this is still a reduction of £136,000 since the month three prediction.

The council report says that predicting demand for social care services has been “particularly challenging” during the coronavirus pandemic.

It says: “Demand for social care services for both children and adults historically has been volatile and during the Covid-19 pandemic, predicting demand has been particularly challenging.

“The pandemic has also highlighted the fragilities in the social care market which in turn has led to pressure on fee levels.”

The biggest pressure within social services is children’s services, which has a projected overspend of £1.4 million.

This is largely due to the council’s 43% increase in residential placements since the 2020/21 budget was set. At the start of the year the council was supporting 21 residential placements, but the report indicates that the most recent figure is 30 residential placements.

While children’s services is seeing a large overspend, adult services is predicted an underspend of £375,000, which is helping to reduce the overall social services predicted overspend.

This is largely due to the council’s own residential care and supported living service predicting a £711,000 underspend.

There are a mixture of reasons for this including delays in recruitment, additional income from other authorities, more service users and absence through redeployment throughout the coronavirus pandemic.