A LEADING borough councillor says he is 'flabbergasted' that Thurrock Council massively miscalculated what money it was eligible to claim from the government during the covid crisis and is now digging into its emergency reserves to pay back more than a million pounds.

This week's meeting of the council's Corporate Services overview and scrutiny committee discussed a first quarter overspend by the council of £3.1 million against budget, most of which is related to children's serv ices./

In addition the meeting discussed a projected £1.2 million overspend that is a repayment to the government for money it claimed and spent – but wasn't entitled to draw down during the pandemic.

Highlighting the cost in the forecast revenue and capital outturn report, committee chairman Cllr Ben Maney said: "A not insignificant amount – £1.2 million – is as a result of an overestimation in respect of the covid grant. That's quite a significant overestimation. How did we arrive at that? What due diligence was done?

"It's not a minor variance, is it? It's quite a significant amount and I'm just a bit flabbergasted at how that overestimation was arrived at."

In response, Dawn Calvert, Thurrock's chief financial officer, said: "During the covid period councils were allowed to claim for their loss of fees and charges income during the covid period. It was quite a tricky task to do in terms of estimating.

"What's happened here is that claim has been made for £1.2 million over what we've actually lost. It's hard for me to say why that happened as I wasn't here but it was a very difficult scheme to forecast.

"The council claimed £2.3 million under the scheme and expects the Government to claw back the over payment."

This will be funded from reserves according the report.

Cllr Maney said: "The reserves are there for a reason and you can only draw down on them so much. The overspend would be a lot worse if it wasn't for that reliance on reserves and that kind of unmasks the unhealthy position we are in."

Ms Calvert said: "Reserves are there for a specific purpose and the agreement on reserves is that we use it for a one-off specific expenditure. The reserves we are using are one-offs intended for that purpose."