A Lewisham councillor has warned the mistakes which led to a £12.6m overspend on children's services have not been uncovered.

This comes as the council makes around £20.8m worth of cuts to services, ahead of setting a budget in February next year.

Speaking at a mayor and cabinet meeting, public accounts select committee chairman Cllr Jim Mallory said the committee still wasn't satisfied with council officers' explanations for the overspend.

He said there was a "reluctance to admit what went wrong" and that accepting the explanations "does constitute a massive leap of faith that somehow we are going to get it right next year."

Lewisham Council’s £15.6m overspend on children’s services was reportedly due to a systems failure and budget assumptions, and included £12.6m overspend on children's social care.

Cllr Mallory said the committee found it difficult to accept officers' explanations as to why the overspend was not picked up sooner.

"Reports from officers on that overspend, I have to say we weren't totally satisfied with the explanation of inadequate reporting between central and children and young people finance sections," he said.

Lewisham Council had an obligation to better manage children's services particularly in light of the cuts to front-line services in the council was facing - services "on which the council's reputation is founded," he continued.

This included "back office staff who in previous rounds have been cut so much as to impair seriously the delivery of those front-line services," he said.

Addressing Mayor Damien Egan and his cabinet, Cllr Mallory said: "Matters this past year in children's care post have been exacerbated by the late discovery of previously unreported overspend of £12.6m.

"We also accept there has been a terrific pressure on remaining senior management in children's social care.

"We did recognise measures had been taken to improve the service.

"We hope lessons are learned and we can begin to see some of those actions taking effect," he added.