Agenda item

The Deputy Chief Executive and Section 151 Officer presented the Quarter Three Revenue and Performance Monitoring 24-25 for Members’ consideration.

It was noted that this report along with the Finance Recovery report, also considered at this Cabinet meeting, had been pre-scrutinised by the Finance and Budget Working Group (FBWG) at its meeting that took place on 21^st March 2025.

During consideration of this report, Members were informed of the following:

• Currently the Council was forecasting an underspend of £53,000 at Quarter Three which was an improvement of £397,000 reported at Quarter Two. Details of variations of any underspend and overspends were provided and the reasons for these variations were highlighted for Members.
• As of 31^st December 2024, the Council had no long-term borrowing and £6million worth of investments.
• The spend on the Capital Programme was currently £2.284million versus a budget of £7million. There was no debt as a result of the Capital Programme as it was funded solely by the Council.
• The Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) funding could not be accessed until the 2026 – 2027 financial year. These funds would be utilised for the Market Hall project.
• There had been an increase in costs at the Windsor Street site due to further remediation works being identified. This increase had been covered within the contingency budget. It was noted that this site would be ready for development very soon.
• There were £12.8million in General Fund Reserves and £9.534million in earmarked Reserves (this included the £40,000 which had previously been allocated to the Poverty Truth Commission).
• Members Wards Budget allocations continued to be monitored and currently there had been £46,700 spent of this budget which meant that £15,300 was still to be allocated prior to the end of the financial year.
• The impact of the Local Government Reorganisation and the impact this increase of workload would have on the workload of Senior Officers within the Council.
• The Procurement Pipeline which included details of contracts expected to be reprocured and procured in the future. It was noted that there were currently seventeen contracts between the old key decision threshold of £50,000 and the new key threshold of £200,000, ten contracts over the key decision threshold of £2000,000 and four contracts procured by Redditch Borough Council on behalf of Bromsgrove. Any contracts over the new key decision threshold would be included in the Forward Plan.

The Policy Manager presented the performance monitoring information contained within the Quarter Three Revenue and Performance Monitoring 2024 – 2025. It was reported that the suite of measures were aligned with the Council Plan. The information looked different to previous reports as there had been a change to the format following requests received from Members. There were some measures still to be included such as Freedom of Information and Subject Access Request data. This was a result of projects currently being carried out in these areas. They would however appear in future versions of these reports.

Members access to these measures would increase over the coming months due to the introduction of the Power BI system, which would provide up to date and more dynamic data. This software also allowed greater interrogation of the data included in the system and a summary sheet would also be available in order to see where there were any trends in particular areas. This would ensure that any areas of positive or negative change could be identified more easily and quickly.

The performance measures not only aligned with the Council Plan they were linked to the Service Business Planning process which had recently been undertaken by Officers. It was hoped that this approach would provide greater clarity on how the Council was performing versus the Council Plan.

The Deputy Chief Executive and Section 151 Officer explained that at the meeting of the FBWG on 21^st March 2025, Members had some queries and areas to look at further in future reports. These included:

• Information on the direction of travel from Quarter to Quarter in order to better understand what the issues were prior to them becoming more serious.
• The timeline of the inclusion of all measures in future reports. This was identified as being in September 2025.
• Workforce Strategy was identified as an area of significant concern particularly the high 10 days of lost time per Full Time Equivalent (FTE)
• More information to be provided on Enforcement including action taken by Environmental Services and Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS).
• A full reconciliation of the Market Hall project.

Members expressed that this was a really good report, and the data was presented was much improved and more transparent way.

Concerns were raised regarding the increased number of new houses that needed to be built within the District per annum in line with the new National Planning Policy Framework.

Members requested that further information be provided in future reports such as:

1. Disability Facilities Grants – the average length of the process from the first enquiry to the delivery of the project.
2. Enforcement – how long enforcement cases had taken and the outcomes of any enforcement, whether there had been no further action or if the enforcement had resulted in a prosecution.
3. Number of lost telephone calls to the Council because of long waiting times.

Members were interested in the process regarding the GBSLEP monies and whether Birmingham City Council had the authority to withhold monies in this way until the 2026 – 2027 financial year. It was stated that there had been a bid submitted to access these funds, and the outcome of the submission would be known over the coming months.

Following the presentation of the report Members thanked the Deputy Chief Executive and Section 151 Officer for all his hard work over his time with the Council and wished him every success in the future.

RESOLVED that

1)              The current Revenue underspend position of £53k and actions the Council were taking to mitigate this position be noted.

2)              The current Capital spending of £2.284m against a budget of £7.070m be noted.

3)              The Ward Budget allocation position to date is 23 approved allocations at £33,137.

4)              The updated procurements position, with any new items over £200,000 to be included on the forward plan.

5)       The Quarter Three Performance data for the period October to December 2024 be noted. This is in the new format.

6)       The Council submit a bid for £2.425m to Birmingham City Council for funding allocated to Bromsgrove by the former Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) to support the completion of the Market Hall regeneration initiative.

RECOMMENDED that

7)       That the Balance Sheet Monitoring Position for Quarter Three be noted – which is the Treasury Monitoring Report and required to be reported to Council.

8)       In the event that the bid be successful, the budget be amended to reflect that the GBSLEP funding was being applied to the Market Hall development.