CHESHIRE East Council has returned a budget surplus of £900,000 for last year and announced that it will be returning the money to the people of Cheshire East through grants to local community groups.


Publishing its pre-audit statement of accounts and draft Annual Governance Statement for 2013/14, the council confirmed a £900,000 under spend against its approved revenue budget of £260m.


Welcoming the news, Council Leader Michael Jones said: "I am delighted to announce this budget surplus, which is the result of a lot of hard work in ensuring the council does more with less.


"Since I became leader of Cheshire East in 2012, we have kept a relentless focus on improving value for money for the council taxpayers in Cheshire East.


“We have been prepared to make the hard choices that have reshaped and refocused the whole council on delivery.


"We have taken out tens of millions of core costs and radically reformed the way we work to become a strategic commissioning council.


"What this means is that we put residents’ first and deliver them the very best services, regardless of whether we provide them or we commission them from elsewhere."


The council’s robust financial health comes just a year into a three-year programme designed to transform Cheshire East into a strategic commissioning council.


In addition to the surplus, the cabinet will recommend the creation of new reserves of £12.4million to council.