Issue - meetings

The Chief Finance Officer presented the finance and performance monitoring report for the first quarter of the 2025/26 financial year.  Members were advised that in future, financial and performance monitoring data would be reported separately for the Executive Committee’s consideration.

By the end of the first quarter, Officers were anticipating that there would be an overspend of £19,900 by the end of the financial year.  Changes could occur prior to the end of the financial year but Officers would continue to monitor the budget position moving forward.

In respect of treasury management, the Council had not borrowed from external sources during the quarter and the authority was debt free in the General Fund.  Investments were held in security, liquidity and yield, which ensured that the Council received a rate of return.

Information had been included in the report in respect of expenditure on Members’ ward budgets.  This revealed that Members had spent more than a third of the available ward budgets by the end of the first quarter of the financial year.

Once the report had been presented, Members discussed the content and in doing so noted that savings targets had been included in the report.  The Executive Committee would continue to monitor progress in relation to these savings targets as the financial year progressed.

Reference was made to the figures that had been included in the report in respect of expenditure of Members’ ward budgets and questions were raised about whether the detail provided was accurate.  Members commented that they were aware of some Councillors who were recorded as not having spent their budgets when they had in fact agreed to some expenditure.  Officers clarified that the report related to expenditure in the first quarter of the financial year, from April to June 2025, and would not include any expenditure of ward budgets agreed by Members in July or August.  This would be addressed in the monitoring report for the second quarter of the financial year instead.

The deadline for expenditure of the Members’ ward budgets was also questioned.  Members noted that they were being encouraged to spend ward budgets by the end of December 2025 and they queried whether this represented the final deadline.  Clarification was provided that ideally ward budgets would be spent by the end of December 2025, as this would help with budget monitoring and planning for the future.  However, the actual deadline for expenditure of the Members’ ward budgets would be the end of the financial year on 31^st March 2026.  To ensure that these budgets were spent in a timely manner and in accordance with the proper process, Members requested that a reminder be issued to all Councillors regarding the deadline for expenditure of Members’ ward budgets together with a copy of the form that Members needed to complete.

The performance data included in the report was also discussed.  Members welcomed the inclusion of additional contextual information for some of the measures included in the report.  The suggestion was made that it  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37