Agenda item

The Executive Director of Resources, Bromsgrove District Council (BDC) and Redditch Borough Council (RBC), introduced the report and in doing so drew Members’ attention to the Recommendations as detailed on page 101 of the main agenda report.

The Executive Director of Resources confirmed that the report covered the period of April to March 2023 and also included the Annual Return.

The detailed revenue report was attached at Appendix 1 to the report.  This showed a final outturn refund of £182k, which represented 5.2% of the actual budget and was mainly due to: -

• The inability to recruit like for like numbers of employees to backfill capacity committed to grant funded or other income generated work.

• The outturn underspend was £151k greater than that forecasted at quarter 3.  This was due to additional income of £90k, £45k additional income in relation to Planning Enforcement, £28k for AQ Monitoring Station funded by Wychavon and an additional £10k for bereavements. 

• Any grant funded expenditure was shown separate to the core service costs as this was not funded by the participating Councils.

• As requested by the Board Appendix 1 details explanations relating to the variances.

It was proposed that the £182k was allocated as follows:

To transfer £120k to a new WRS Reserve to fund the 2023/24 pay award.

In 2022/3, the service had to ask partners for additional funding to address the pay award (£1,925 on each spinal point,) as the 2% uplift originally budgeted for was not sufficient. In November, it was not anticipated that employers would make a similar offer in 2023/4, so the budget increase was 2% again.

To transfer £10k to the WRS Reserve towards a stray dog van

The service had been trying to buy its replacement dog vans via a government procurement framework that offered better prices than buying direct from suppliers. However, delivery dates had been pushed back on multiple occasions and WRS had now reached a point where they could not delay any further, therefore, some additional funding was required to purchase directly from suppliers. The Head of Regulatory Services clarified for Members that the £10k was to add to the current reserve of £72k and was due to the increased cost associated with buying directly from suppliers as opposed going through the government procurement framework.

The remaining £52k, was proposed to be refunded back to partners as per below:

Bromsgrove District Council - £7,562
Malvern Hills District Council - £6,772
Redditch Borough Council - £9,111
Worcester City Council - £8,597
Wychavon District Council - £12,079
Wyre Forest District Council - £7,853

The Head of Regulatory Services clarified that the current reserve of £467k detailed on page 112 of the main agenda pack, was largely reserved for specific projects such as IT enhancement project, Brexit fund and the stray dog vans. Only £130k of the fund was a general reserve which was available to be used and that was the basis for why WRS sought to add an additional £120k to address the 2023/24 pay increase shortfall. It was also noted that the Brexit reserve was no longer being used and could be reallocated or refunded during the budget review in November.

RESOLVED that

a)    the final financial position for the period April 2023 to March 2023, be noted;

b)     the refund of £52k to the participating Councils, be approved as follows: -

c)     the creation of a £120k reserve to address the expected impact of the pay award for 2023/4 and the addition of £10k to the reserve for replacement dog warden vans.