Auditors investigating a £3.7m overspend by the social services department of Gloucestershire County Council have blamed poor management practices.

And the accounting procedures were inadequate or poorly understood by staff when extra money, not included in the £82.6m budget, was spent - largely on children's services including foster care and on community care for the disabled and elderly.

A confidential report by Audit and Consultancy Services, produced after an investigation at Shire Hall from February to April, has yet to be made public.

But a copy obtained by the local Gloucester paper The Citizen shows how the overspend happened, identifies weaknesses in the administrative and accounting system, and makes recommendations to make sure it does not happen again.

The auditors say the underlying cause was the high level of demand for services in both areas. This was made worse in the children's area by a lack of experienced social workers and the loss of senior managers at a crucial time.

The report says: "Assumptions underlying the forecast expenditure on the children's agency appear to have been unsound in the first half of the year and produced over optimistic outrun figures.

"Management and finance staff did not appear to work together as well as would have been expected and a more pro-active team approach is needed in future.

"Corrective action to reduce overspends was delayed in the case of the children's agency and staff shortages may well have contributed to this. Appropriate action was taken over the community care budget."

The auditors criticise the department's financial monitoring process as "time consuming and not concentrated on key risk areas".

They call for a risk-based approach with different reporting frequencies and point out that the same pressures will continue in the current financial year.

They warn: "Data quality continues to be poor in the department and has an effect on the ability of staff to produce accurate expenditure forecasts.

"There is a need to review the working relationships between administrative, finance, purchasing and field work staff to ensure that data input and clerical and administrative support is managed effectively.

"Recommendations for improving practice have been discussed with the department and they are broadly supportive."

A summary of the report has been discussed by the council's strategy and resource committee. Council spokeswoman Sam Roffe said: "We do not discuss confidential reports."

Used courtesy of the The Citizen, Gloucester