Issue - meetings

Further to Minute No. 241 of the meeting of the Cabinet held on 30^th April, 2014, consideration was given to a report presented by Pete Hudson, Chief Finance Manager, which provided details of progress on the delivery of the Revenue Budget for 2013/14 based on performance for the first eleven months of the financial year.  It was currently forecast that the Council would underspend against its Budget by £36k (-0.016%). This represented an improvement in the forecast outturn of £1.219M since the January monitoring report.

Delivery of this very positive forecast outturn would not have been possible without the early implementation of Cabinet’s Budget Strategy to bring spend back in line during the financial year. This included both the implementation of the in-year moratorium on non-essential spend (October 2013) and the release of 126 staff through Voluntary Early Retirement/Voluntary Severance (VER/VS). Implementation of the moratorium on non-essential spend had adversely impacted on some services ability to deliver income targets (most notably ICT services), however, overall a slight underspend was still forecast. 

Members were asked to note that meetings continued to take place with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) with regard to levels and timing of Continuing Health Care (CHC) funding. Details of progress to date were included within this report.

It was proposed that the next budget monitoring report would be the Council’s 2013/14 Outturn Report which was to be presented to Cabinet in June once the Council’s Statutory Unaudited Financial Statements have been prepared.

The Select Commission were advised of the forecasted over and underspends for each which were set out in detail as part of the report.

A discussion and answer session ensued and the following issues were raised and subsequently clarified where possible:-

-           What was the effect on the budget when schools were in deficit and then sought academy status and how the future risk was mitigated.

-           Liability on pensions when a school turned into an academy.

-           Amazing achievement of a 97.1% collection rate target for Council Tax and the thanks to staff on maintaining and exceeding collection targets.

-           Identification of unachievable budget savings targets and why these were still identified as savings going forward.

-           Responsibility of Directorates and Finance Managers ensuring savings put forward were achieved and assurances that the monitoring process was taking place.

-           Improvements in Children and Young People’s Services year on year, but which were still reporting an overspend, which was being offset by bigger savings by other Directorates.

-           Overspend on winter pressures and the impact on the budget of a harsher winter than that of 2013/14.

-           Inherent pressure of winter maintenance which appeared out of kilter in terms of adequate budget provision and the potential for a spotlight scrutiny review on this area either by this Commission or Improving Places.

-           Forecasted contribution to reserves from the Housing Revenue Account when the budget set indicated the need for a draw down from reserves and a request for the content to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 72

-           Director of Finance to report.

Councillor Akhtar, Deputy Leader, introduced a report by the Director of Finance which provided details of the significant progress on the delivery of the Revenue Budget for 2013/14 based on performance for the first eleven months of the financial year.  It was currently forecast that the Council would underspend against its Budget by -£36k (-0.016%). This represented an improvement in the forecast outturn of £1.219m since the January monitoring report. Despite the overall balanced forecast there were a number of pressure areas (detailed in Appendix 1 to the report), offset by savings and underspends elsewhere.

Delivery of this very positive forecast outturn would not have been possible without the early implementation of Cabinet’s Budget Strategy to bring spend back in line during the financial year. This included both the implementation of the in-year moratorium on non-essential spend (October 2013) and the release of 126 staff through Voluntary Early Retirement/Voluntary Severance (VER/VS). Implementation of the moratorium on non-essential spend had adversely impacted on some services ability to deliver income targets (most notably ICT services), however, overall a slight underspend was still forecast. 

Members were asked to note that meetings continued to take place with the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) with regard to levels and timing of Continuing Health Care (CHC) funding. Details of progress to date were included within this report.

It was proposed that the next budget monitoring report would be the Council’s 2013/14 Outturn Report which was to be presented to Cabinet in June once the Council’s Statutory Unaudited Financial Statements have been prepared.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the significant achievement of a balanced forecast outturn be noted.

(2)  That the progress made to date in respect of Continuing Health Care negotiations be noted.