Agenda item

The Head of Financial and Customer Services presented the Financial Monitoring Report for the second quarter for the 2020/21 financial year.

During the presentation of this report the following matters were highlighted for Members’ consideration:

·                Significant overspends had been recorded for the strategic purpose ‘run and grow a successful business’.  There was a total forecast deficit of £1 million for this strategic purpose.

·                A lot of the overspends in the budget were driven by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, such as with the loss of income from car parking fees during the lockdown.

·                The majority of the overspend for ‘run and grow a successful business’ could be attributed to the loss of income from car parking fees during the pandemic.

·                A £169,000 overspend had been reported for the strategic purpose ‘communities which are safe and well maintained’.

·                There had been some challenges with waste management disposal costs resulting in overspends on overtime and call out hours at a cost of £219,000.  This overspend was being reviewed at a corporate level.

·                However, the Council had received £1.255 million in 4 tranches of Covid-19 grants from the Government.  In total £390,000 of this funding had already been spent so that £865,000 remained to be spent and some of this funding could be used to mitigate the overspends in the budget.

·                There were some underspends which had been achieved from salary savings, particularly in the tree management team.

·                There were also underspends arising from temporary vacant positions in Customer, Democratic and ICT services of £194,000.

·                In addition, there was a training underspend of £100,000.

·                Disabled facility grants remained underspent and Officers were investigating this to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable residents were being met.

·                There was an £87,000 underspend on the strategic purpose ‘living active and healthy lives’ and this was mainly due to the impact of Covid-19 on Leisure Services.  Additional grant funding had been secured to help support Leisure Services and would help to offset the additional fee that was likely to be requested by the Council’s Leisure Service provider.

·                By the date of the meeting Officers were anticipating a variance in the budget of £1.288 million.

·                There was a recommendation about reprofiling the Burcot Lane project as the capital spending had not been able to proceed as quickly as had been anticipated.  A grant had been agreed with Homes England for this project so was moving ahead.

Following the presentation of the report Members discussed the financial position and the possibility that further grant funding would be received by the Council to help manage the budget moving forward.  The grant funding received to offset the loss of income from fees and charges would be allocated to particular service areas and Members were advised that it would be prudent to analyse the budget position and any gaps in the budget once these allocations had been confirmed.

During consideration of this item the Cabinet thanked the Head of Financial and Customer Services and the Financial Services team for their hard work managing the budget during the year.  Members recognised that the team had had an increase in workload during the period due to the need to co-ordinate the provision of approximately £30 million in grant funding to businesses impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reference was also made to the level of income that had been lost by the Council during the pandemic which would not be covered by grant funding from the Government.  Members were advised that clarification was awaited in respect of the final position of the accounts and once this had been finalised further clarification could be provided.

RESOLVED that the current financial position in relation to revenue and capital budgets for the financial period April 2020 – September 2020 as detailed in the report be noted.

RECOMMENDED that the reprofiling of the Burcot Lane project in the capital programme 2020/21 due to officers completing a review of the Capital budget for 2020/21 – 2023/24 as detailed in appendix 3 be approved.