Issue - meetings

This report will be subject to pre-scrutiny at a meeting of the Budget Scrutiny Working Group due to take place on 21^st November 2024.  Any recommendations arising from that meeting on this subject will be reported to the Executive Committee in a supplementary pack.

The Deputy Chief Executive and Section 151 Officer presented the Revenue and Performance Monitoring Report for the second quarter of the 2024/25 financial year.

Members were asked to note that the report updated the Committee on the following areas:

·             The Council’s forecast outturn revenue monitoring position for 2024/25 based on data to the end of the second quarter.

·             The position in respect of balance sheet monitoring as requested by the Audit, Governance and Standards Committee.

·             The updated procurement pipeline of Council projects due to be delivered over the following 12 months in order to properly plan for the delivery of these projects.

·             The organisation’s performance against the strategic priorities outlined in the Council Plan Addendum, including operational measures to demonstrate how the Council was delivering services to customers.

In terms of financial performance, the draft position was a £299,000 overspend, up from the £164,000 overspend reported in the quarter 1 report. As this related to expenditure at quarter 2, Members were asked to note that at this stage in the financial year, there were a number of instances where annual expenditure or accruals might distort the profiling.  The projected figures assumed support services and grants were adjusted to budgetary levels and accruals were netted out of the figures.

The overspends of £2.35 million detailed in the report, were offset by additional income of £2.05 million in corporate financing from additional grant income together with increased investment interest receivable and lower interest payable.  The Committee was asked to note that significant agency overspending in Financial Services related to the delivery of the Council’s accounts.  Overspends in Environmental Services were linked to greater costs arising with the Council’s vehicle fleet and reductions in income from Bereavement Services.

Additional funding had been added for the level of the pay award to staff, which had been agreed recently and which was above the 4 per cent allowed for in the 2024/25 budget.

In terms of cash management and borrowing, the Committee was informed that as of 30th September 2024, the Council had no short-term borrowings. The authority did have long-term borrowings of £103.9 million, although Members were asked to note that this linked to the Housing Revenue Account (HRA).

In respect of Council investments, Members were informed that on 30^th September 2024 there were £15 million of short-term investments held by the authority.

The capital programme had been approved in the Council’s budget for 2024/25 in February 2024.  The Council’s outturn spend in the capital programme was £3.682 million against a capital budget totalling £20.507 million. Members were asked to note that, as part of the budget setting process, it had previously been decided that £8.051 million would be rolled forward from 2023/24 into 2024/25 to take account of slippage from 2023/24.

Included in this capital programme, the Council also had the following grant funded schemes which were being delivered in 2024/25:

·             The three Town’s Fund schemes:

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