ADULT social care in West Berkshire started last year with £2 million missing from its budget.

The department, which covers care homes, nursing homes, and carers helping people in their own home, spent £2.9 million more than was budgeted for.

Nick Carter, chief executive of West Berkshire Council, said: “Adult social care started the year £2 million light of what it should have had. It didn’t overspend by £2.9 million, it started off with insufficient money in its budget.”

The council in 2017 brought in a new model to forecast its budget for adult social care, but this underestimated how much would need to be spent on things like care packages for the frail elderly and those with learning disabilities and mental health needs.

Councillor Graham Bridgman, the portfolio holder for adult social care, said the model has improved a lot since it was first brought in and is now much more sophisticated.

Birchwood care home in Newbury was also a ‘very significant factor’ in the overspend, according to Mr Carter. The home was transferred to the council from a private company in June 2017. A CQC inspection shortly after deemed the home ‘inadequate’.

The council stopped referring anybody new into Birchwood and sent them to more costly private homes instead, until the next inspection when CQC upgraded the home to ‘requires improvement’. Cllr Bridgman said a lot of resources have been put into Birchwood and was confident that the home would be rated ‘good’ after the next inspection this year.

Staffing problems caused extra spend as care homes often rely on agency carers instead of directly employed staff. Agency carers cost more as the agency has to be paid as well. WBC wants to recruit more of its own carers and is supporting a government campaign to fill the 110,000 vacancies nationally.

Mr Carter said: “Every single adult social care department in the country overspends. This was a series of unfortunate errors that did not get picked up.”

Funding adult social care is a challenge across England. Age UK said there will be around an extra 4.75 million people aged over 65 over the next two decades. The Local Government Association estimates a funding gap of £3.5 billion by 2025. The government is due to publish a green paper on funding adult social care, but this been delayed because of Brexit.