Continuously borrowing from reserves has led to York’s difficult financial situation, according to the city's finance chief.

City of York Council is planning cuts to deal with its forecasted £11.4 million overspend in the coming year, which would exhaust its reserves.

The administrating Labour group of councillors and the opposition group of Liberal Democrat councillors have, subsequently, pointed fingers of blame at each other.

Liberal Democrats accuse Labour of causing the damage since coming into office in May.

But Labour says the Liberal Democrat and Green coalition managed council finances without considering long term implications of their decisions when they were in office.

Now, Debbie Mitchell, the council's chief financial officer - a non-political council officer role - has given her assessment of the situation.

She said: “If you look at our history, in terms of our budget position, our pressures and areas of overspending are recurring and they’re national issues, predominantly adult and children social care.

“But our mitigations to balance our budget have been one-off [payments].

“We need more government funding; we do very badly out of any government grants and government funding.

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“But if you look at our last three years, for example, we overspent by just under £5 million last year and that was funded by contingencies and other one-off reserves.

“We overspent by £2.5 million the year before and we overspent by £1.3 million the year before that.

“So you can see it’s gradually been getting to a position where the overspend has been increasing.

“So now we’re at a position where we’ve used spare money, one-off money.

“But once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Ian Floyd, the council’s chief operating officer, another council officer role, said he was confident the situation will be properly handled.

“It’s a very difficult financial position but it’s not one that we can’t manage, I would say,” he said.

“That will require difficult decisions to be made and a number of those decisions will require political leadership.

“What I’ve seen so far demonstrates the ability to take that political leadership.”

Cllr Katie Lomas, finance executive in the Labour-run new council administration, recently attacked the former Liberal Democrat administration for its financial record.

Cllr Lomas said: “The old Liberal Democrat administration managed the council’s finances as though they wouldn’t be around to worry about the consequences, which has proven to be the case."

However, Liberal Democrat leader in York, Cllr Nigel Ayre, defended his party’s record.

He said: “Under the leadership of the Liberal Democrats over the last four years the council came in on budget, every year.

“Whether through the Covid pandemic, through the Liz Truss economy crash, through the sky-high inflation following the Ukraine war, without having to make the sorts of drastic in-year cuts that have been threatened, despite similar in-year pressures.”