Issue - meetings

The Executive Director of Finance and Resources presented the Financial Monitoring report for quarter 2 of the 2019/20 financial year. 

The Section 24 Notice had highlighted concerns about how the Council would achieve a balanced budget in 2019/20.  Since the notice was issued senior officers had agreed that non-essential spend would not be permitted and additional income had been received for CCTV services and bulky waste collections.  As a consequence an underspend of £571,000 was anticipated by the end of the financial year.  A number of additional savings were proposed including from vacancies in Environmental Services and a review of the Corporate Management Team (CMT).  A full review of the capital programme had also been undertaken and it was anticipated that there would be an underspend of £3.5 million in the programme by the end of the year which would contribute to savings in borrowing costs.

The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) was projected to be in a better position than had been assumed at the start of the year, though in order to balance the budget funding would be required from reserves and this would take the HRA below the minimum revenue position.  The Housing Department was therefore only undertaking essential expenditure and Officers were aiming to achieve significant savings including in Housing Capital.  A stock condition survey was in the process of being undertaken and the results of this survey would help to inform the work of the Housing Capital team moving forward.

Members discussed the report and noted that a significant amount in savings was anticipated arising from staff vacancies, particularly in Environmental Services.  Officers advised that the staffing budget for Environmental Services was relatively large, at approximately £7 million.  A number of vacancies had arisen in the department in recent months and a decision had been taken not to recruit to those posts.  The Council also no longer employed tree officers, though the authority was separately paying external contractors to work on tree maintenance.  Members noted that residents were reporting a delay of 12 to 18 months in tree maintenance work.  Officers explained that there had been some initial issues in the transfer to contract use but the contractors were picking up more work and undertaking the same volume of tasks compared to working practices in previous years.

The reasons for the underspend in the capital programme were also debated by Members.  The Committee was informed that a large amount of this underspend had occurred due to a review of the Council’s vehicle replacement scheme.  As the Borough of Redditch was relatively small geographically the Council did not need to replace vehicles as frequently as many other district Councils and there tended to be less damage incurred to those vehicles.  The vehicles would still need to be replaced but the timeframes had been phased throughout the period of the capital programme.

RESOLVED that

the current financial position in relation to Revenue and Capital for the General Fund and HRA for the financial period April 2019 – September  ...  view the full minutes text for item 75