A PLAN to shift £400,000 from Monmouthshire council departments into its children’s services section was approved by senior councillors yesterday (Wed).

The authority’s cabinet agreed to move the money from departments into it last month to improve services and to employ new staff to stop overworking others, including social workers. Yesterday (Wed) the measures were finalised.

The council pushed to move resources because of difficulties in the children’s services department. A report published in May said social workers’ caseloads are too great. Additions including four new social workers will look to remedy that.

Other jobs paid for by the money will include two others in its fostering team, a placement and contracts officer, a business support administrator and a part-time clinical psychologist.

A quarter of the cash will be taken from the council’s operations department. Currently vacant senior policy and performance and head of highways and flooding jobs will remain unfilled for four months, saving £12,000 and £24,000 respectively. The council said it is “manageable for a short period” to continue without people in these posts.

Other delays in highways and property maintenance in that department will save £64,000.

Another £40,000 will be taken from the democracy and regulatory services budget, three quarters of which will be taken from individual electoral registration funding. Council documents state those funds will not be required in this financial year.

Other staffing efficiencies worth £35,000 will be “manageable without significant impact” in the children and young people’s department, a council report seen at yesterday’s the meeting said.

The council’s deputy leader, Cllr Bob Greenland, said although the measures were necessary their impact would be felt, particularly because of reduced budgets from the Welsh Government.

He said: “Finding £400,000 from a tight budget position isn’t easy and it doesn’t come without pain.”

And of postponing maintenance works to retain money for other areas, he said: “You can understand it will have an effect on us. If they’re not undertaken now, the later you have to undertake them.

“It is absolutely essential that we’ve found this but there is a cost to it.”