MORE than £1 million pounds has been shaved off a huge projected North Yorkshire County Council overspend on social services, new figures show.

A social services overspend of £1.59 million had been expected for the last financial year, but this has now been reduced to £541,000.

Large underspends, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, have been rung up in the education and environmental services departments.

Senior councillors will on Tuesday be asked to approve the various budget changes at a county council executive meeting.

The massive social services reduction has mainly been possible because of changes in the way the council pays for adult residential care home placements.

A funding review means the council can now claim the full value of residential placement grants, saving large amounts of money.

There has also been a decline in the number of people being accommodated in costly temporary residential placements.

Other savings have been made because of a slowing in price increases and a reduction in the number of care home places needed to meet bed-blocking targets.

A saving of £66,000 on the expected overspend was made by tight control of winter maintenance costs and low levels of expenditure on damage repairs throughout the winter months.

The education department underspend is worth £704,000, jumping to more than £1 million after a £379,000 training services underspend.

All the money has been allocated to the 2003/2004 budget, with £156,000 being carried forward, £500,000 worth of savings and a further £427,000 of savings to cover expected cash problems in the new financial year.

Of the environmental services department's underspend, £205,000 has been allocated to support the highways general maintenance budget.

A final report on the council's financial performance in 2002/2003 is expected to be handed to members in late June.

The executive meeting will be held at County Hall, Northallerton, from 11am on Tuesday. For more details phone 01609 780780.

Updated: 10:29 Thursday, April 10, 2003