THE city council is in line for a "disastrous" £8 million overspend as officers impose urgent cost-cutting measures to try to claw the money back.

Brighton and Hove City Council members were warned in an internal email seen by The Argus that the overspend was “unprecedented” and puts the authority in a “high risk position”.

The £8 million budget black hole comes from increases in spending mainly on both child care and adult social services.

In response council bosses told The Argus “every effort and appropriate checks and balances are in place to ensure there will be no impact on essential council services”.

The executive leadership team, headed up by acting chief executive Geoff Raw, has imposed financial controls which are being implemented with immediate effect.

The controls limit spending, restricting the use of agency staff and freezing inessential recruitment – meaning many vacancies will have to be covered with available staff.

In the internal email councillors and officers said not curbing the problem "would be disastrous for the council as we have large predicted budget gaps for 2016/17 and beyond with any overspend simply adding to them".

The opposition on the council said the overspend risk highlighted the need for “urgent reform” of the council’s inner workings and criticised the current Labour administration's handling of the budget.

Councillor Andrew Wealls, Conservative Group spokesman for finance, said: “This just highlights once again the need for urgent reform of how the council works and what it does.

“These new spending controls that have been put in place are presented as ‘exceptional’ by the Labour administration but they are things that any modern, well-run council should be doing anyway.”

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: “Forecasting possible overspends at this early time of the financial year is not uncommon.

“This is part of rigorous financial management where we act quickly to control our spending.

“As normal where overspending is forecast, we have instructed overspending areas to produce recovery plans and to look at all available options to bring the position back into balance.

“Every effort and appropriate checks and balances are in place to ensure there will be no impact on essential council services.

“Financial pressures are particularly severe at the moment due to cuts in government budget allocations which mean we need to make savings of £77 million over the next 4 years.

“This is precisely why we are putting in additional financial controls”