RYEDALE District Council has defended its budget after one councillor complained that the cost of the ongoing voluntary redundancies at the authority - and its "transformation" restructuring programme - had not been correctly budgeted for.

At a meeting of the policy and resources committee last Thursday, Councillor John Clark, of the Cropton ward, said: "In the budgetary figures from earlier this year, the cost of voluntary redundancy was nil and the cost of transformation was nil.

"Now, that gives me the impression that we didn't intend, at that point, to spend any money on transformation or any money on redundancies.

"Now we look at the cost and we're looking at £1.2m for voluntary redundancies and £400,000 on the cost of transformation. So we end up with an overspend of £1.69m."

He added that the council transformation programme and redundancy scheme were "already started" when the budget was drawn up so should have been taken into account.

However, council leader and meeting chair Councillor Linda Cowling said that transferring funds mid-year is normal, and that Cllr Clark was just "trying to make a political statement".

She said: "You will recall it was the subject of a decision by the council that we transfer £1.2m, plus £400,000 and that's what balances the books, because members agreed to do that transfer between reserves.

"They are sums of money members agreed in order to fund the council's reorganisation. Budgets are always subject to decisions that members make throughout the year.

"Members made a considered decision to spend that money to facilitate the transformation of the council. Members will always make in-year decisions."

Councillor John Raper, of the Sherburn ward agreed, saying: "There's nothing new, there's nothing different, there's nothing unusual. So long as the sums add up at the end of the day there's no problem."