Issue - meetings

To receive a report of the Strategic Director of Finance and Customer Services that provides an update to Cabinet on a number of financial matters.

Recommendations

1.             That the update on the revenue budget financial outturn 2023/24 be noted.

2.             That the Councils progress on the delivery of the Local Council Tax Support Top Up payment 2024/25 be noted.

3.             That the Councils delivery of the Household Support Fund 2023/24 be noted.

4.             That provisional allocations of the Household Support Fund Grant 2024/25 of £2.489m be agreed as detailed in Section 2.5 of this report. 

5.             That Cabinet delegate authority to the Assistant Chief Executive in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Social Inclusion, to determine revised and final allocations for the Household Support Grant to include provision for other eligible actions within the use of Household Support Fund should it not be possible to achieve full spend of the grant through the approved provisional allocations.

6.             That Cabinet approve the capital budget variations as detailed in Section 2.6 of the report.

At the Chair’s invitation Rob Mahon, Assistant Director for Financial Services introduced the report, noting that the main purpose of the update was to give the headline outturn position for the 2023-2024 financial year. This was ahead of a more detailed outturn report that would be submitted to the July Cabinet meeting, which would detail the specifics around the directorate overspend and underspend and provide a more detailed update regarding the reserves position of the Council. 

It was worth noting the reported overspend for the Council was at £1.2m at the position for December 2023’s monitoring reported to February 2024’s Cabinet as part of the budget and Council’s report setting process for 2024-25. At that point it was indicated that the Council would try to reduce the overspend position by identifying any potential savings, cost reductions, maximisation of grand funding that it would receive between December and March. Due to that work and to ongoing maximisation of grants, the final outturn position was reduced down to £0.1m. The report covered this by directorate.

Overall, some of the key messages was the directorate overspends were £8.8m across, in particular Children and Young People’s Services (CYPS) and Regeneration and Environment (R&E) with the main pressures being CYPS placements, home to school transport and catering. These were offset by £8.7m savings in central services which was where the Council held the £5m budget contingency reserve and £3.7m savings from Treasury Management. That position was how the £0.1m overspend was reached.

The report covered saving progress, which was split into two key areas. The new savings that were agreed as part of the 2023-24 budget setting process. Those savings had been fully delivered and was a positive position to report in terms of savings delivery. He highlighted that they were over delivered by £54k. Where a savings programme had been identified, the Council would continue to try to over-deliver on those.

He then provided an update on the old savings that had been carried forward and re-profiled as part of the Council’s budget for 2023-24 and 2024-25 and the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) Update. Those savings were rolled forward into 2023-24. The updated reported the Council was still behind on some of the CYPS savings in placements, which had been discussed as part of the monitoring reports that had been presented to OSMB and Cabinet. There would be work to do in 2024-25 to continue the delivery of the savings but these were reported through the monitoring reports and the outturn report and through the Statement of Accounts as well to ensure the current position was as robust and clear as possible.

The report also included an update on progress on the local Council Tax support top-up scheme for 2024-25, which was agreed as part of the Council’s budget. The scheme had been launched and residents were receiving that support. A progress updated on the Household Support Fund 2023-24 and the proposals for how the Council would use the 2024-25 Household Support Fund  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6