HEALTH and social care departments at York council are likely to go over their annual budgets by nearly quarter of a million pounds this year, reports show.

City of York Council’s health committee is due to meet next week, and a financial report sets out the department’s situation as 2016/17 draws to a close.

Overall budgets are on course for £244,000 overspends, with significant costs coming from the adult social care management and things like direct payments and hospital social work.

However, the documents do show the figures have improved since the end of the first quarter, when the projected overspend was £341,000, and the second quarter when projections put it at £254,000.

Some £159,000 of the overspend has come from direct payments - which give people chance to organise their own care packages - as there were more customers than budgeted for, and there have been delays in getting back unspent cash.

On top of that, an extra £1.1 million has been spent on residential care places because more people needed placements than expected, and because of delays in moving some people with learning disabilities from care into supported living schemes. Older people’s homes are also facing an overspend of £204,000, partly because of more vacant beds than expected.

Overall, managers say the department will make £1.9 million of the £3 million savings it was asked to find this year, but they have warned that part of the £12 million joint council and NHS Better Care Fund are at “serious risk of underperformance”, and that could have more financial impacts on the authority.