Issue - meetings

Report of the Strategic Director of Finance and Customer Services

Recommendations:-

1. That the current General Fund Revenue Budget forecast of £4.0m overspend be noted.

2. That it be noted that actions will continue to be taken to mitigate the forecast overspend.

3. That the Capital Programme update be noted.

Consideration was given to a report which set out the financial position as at the end of December 2019 and was based on actual costs and income for the first nine months of 2019/20 and forecast for the remainder of the financial year.

It was reported that financial performance was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 119

Cabinet Portfolio:               Corporate Services and Finance

Strategic Directorate:         Finance and Customer Services

Consideration was given to a report that was submitted for pre-decision scrutiny ahead of the Cabinet meeting scheduled for 17 February 2020 in respect of December 2019 Financial Monitoring.

The report detailed out the financial position of the Council as at the end of December 2019, with the figures included in the repot being based on actual costs and income for the first nine months of 2019/20 and forecasted figures for the remainder of the financial year. It was noted that as at December 2019, the Council had a forecast year-end overspend of £4.0m on the General Fund.

The report included figures on each Directorate’s projected budget outturn for the financial year 2019/20 as well as the reasons for both positive and negative variances from the 2019/20 budget. Information was also included detailing the actions that were being taken in each directorate in order to reduce and remove negative variances.

It was noted that the Council had £3.2m of the budget contingency reserve available to support the 2019/20 financial outturn, but it was emphasised that if planned savings and spending reductions were not delivered to an extent where they could be wholly contained within the budget contingency reserve, there would be a further negative impact on the Council’s other reserves if they were required to be called on to support the 2019/20 budget.

The Leader of the Council and the Strategic Director, Finance and Customer Services attended the meeting to respond to specific queries from members in respect of report.

The Leader noted that since the publication of the report actions had been implemented across Directorates to reduce, and if possible, remove the £800,000 adverse variance against the Council budget, and that these actions were now starting to have a positive impact. The Leader advised that he had confidence that the £800,000 of required savings could be realised before the end of the financial year. Members sought further information on how capitalisation was being used in managing Council expenditure. The Strategic Director, Finance and Customer Services provided further information on how capitalisation was used in managing budgets and expenditure but noted that it was important that any capitalisation was done in a way that would not cause problems with the budget being stored up for future years.

Members noted the above inflationary cost pressures with regard to residential placements for children and welcomed the revitalised foster care recruitment activity being carried out by Brightsparks for the Council that would positively impact on the number on in-Borough placements. The Leader concurred with members that more in-Borough placements would not only provide better outcomes for the children involved but would also relive pressure in that budget area. The Chair asked with regard to the forecast overspend on home to school transport of £1.3 million, what action was being taken to address the underlying issues around consistent overspending in this budget area that had been highlighted in numerous financial monitoring reports. The Leader noted that this budget area had long been a challenging  ...  view the full minutes text for item 136