Agenda item

The Deputy Chief Executive presented the Finance and Performance Quarter 3 Monitoring Report 2023/24 to Cabinet. During the presentation the following was highlighted Members’ attention:

·       Included in the report was Capital Programme monitoring until the end of December 2023, updated Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) statutory increases in fees and charges for 2024/25, the list of contracts above £200,000 and the list of contracts between £50,000 and £200,000 and the Quarter Three Strategic and Operational Performance Measures.

·       Currently, the Council was forecasting a revenue overspend for 2023/24 in the region of £572,000, before the application of £351,000 from the Utilities Reserve as approved at Quarter One. This application of the reserve would result in a forecast overspend of £221,000 for 2023/24. It was noted that the forecast overspend was predominantly due to the implications of the 2023/24 pay award which had been paid to Officers in December 2023 and had been backdated to 1^st April 2023. Other impacts included:

·       Increased costs in temporary and interim staff requirements.

·       The impact of homelessness and temporary accommodation costs.

·       Higher than expected ICT costs in the Business Transformation service area.

·       Costs of refurbishment of the Council’s fleet.

·       As detailed above, the overspend would be offset by a forecast underspend against the Utilities Budget provision due to Utilities inflation running at 70 per cent rather than at 100 per cent as assumed in the 2023/24 Budget. In addition, the overspend would be offset by the following:

·       additional grants receipts and income for Community and Housing.

·       lower than expected ICT purchases and additional grant income in Business Transformation and Organisational Development.

·       In terms of capital spend it was noted that at Quarter Three it was £3.207m (£1.654m at Quarter Two) against the overall 2023/24 capital budget totalling £10.851m.

In presenting the performance measures information, specific areas to note were as follows:

·       Housing Growth – It was reported that 199 new homes had been built, 55 of which were affordable homes. The Local Housing Affordability rate was reportedly higher than the national rate at 11.17 percent versus the national rate of 9.05 per cent.

·       SLM Leisure (Everyone Active) – there had been an increase in membership numbers from the previous years.

·       Staff Turnover Rates – there had been a continued improvement in turnover rates of only 8.8 per cent, which meant that the authority was significantly under the national average rate of staff turnover (15.6 per cent). This would hopefully continue to improve as a result of the implementation of the Workforce Strategy.

Officers reported that this report had been pre-scrutinised at the Finance and Budget Working Group (FBWG) on Friday 8^th March 2024. During this meeting there had been a detailed discussion regarding fly-tipping. It had been agreed that the presentation previously given by the Environmental Services Manager in respect of this topic be provided for newer Members. It had also been requested that a piece of work regarding comparison of numbers of fly-tipping incidents in neighbouring, similar sized Councils be carried out. This was of particular interest to Members as it was felt that given the current situation of closure of refuse sites in neighbouring Authorities this could potentially cause an increase in incidents occurring within Bromsgrove District. Cabinet Members expressed that there needed to be more communications around the successful enforcement of fly-tipping incidents, including when Fixed Penalty Notices were issued.

Other areas of discussion at the meeting of the FBWG was the use of Street Pastors and how residents were referred to them, and the inclusion of crime statistics in the performance measures. A further request was made that the graphs included in the report were increased in size.

Cabinet discussed the relevance of some of the performance measures included within the report. It was felt that these needed to be updated as part of the update of priorities which was soon to take place. It was important that these new priorities reflected the needs of the Council and any measures linked to these not only measured data, but also impacts as a result of the measures.

RECOMMENDEDthat

1)              The Updated WRS 2023/4 Charges be approved.

RESOLVEDthat

2)    The current overspend position in relation to Revenue and Capital Budgets for the period April to September and the full year revenue overspend position of £221k after applying £351k from the Utilities Reserve as approved at Quarter 1 be noted.

3)    The updated procurements position be noted and those items over £200,000 be included on the forward plan.

4)    The Quarter Two Performance data for the Period April to December 2023 be noted.