Agenda item

The Director of finance submits a report on performance against the revenue budget for the year. The Overview Select Committee is recommended to consider the overall position presented within the report and make any observations it sees fit.

The Director of Finance submitted a report on performance against the revenue budget for the year. The Overview Select Committee was recommended to consider the overall position presented within the report and make and observations as it saw fit to the Director of Finance.

Alison Greenhill, Chief Operating Officer (COO) informed those present that the report was not dissimilar to the report at Period 6. The report included estimated additional cost arising from the pandemic. Section 1 of the report presented the overall position of a forecast overspend of £37million through a combination of reasons, such as, additional spending on testing and tracing programme, loss of income for services being closed, the cost of overtime because it was difficult to recruit to posts under current conditions.

The COO reported that budgets had not been adjusted mid-year as it was thought to be appropriate to show the true additional costs and loss of income. It was acknowledged that significant government funding had been received, but there was still an impact on services and costs. The authority had received £33million of additional grant funding and the authority would continue to put claims in for loss of income. It was noted there was continued uncertainty as government grant funding was one-off, and uncertainty over the longer-term economic recovery which would significantly impact on future budgets.

In response to questions from Members, the following points were made:

·         The authority’s debt tended to be fixed rate at the point the debt was taken out. Interests rates were low, and as a cash-rich authority, the large cash balances were not earning as much money as they would have done three to four years ago, but the mantra was that the safety of the money was most important. The situation was looked at on a daily and weekly basis to try to mitigate the amount of financing costs with the amount of interest the authority earnt. It was noted that at a previous meeting of the Committee there had been a specific recommendation to include in future revenue budget monitoring reports the impact of treasury decisions on daily revenue budget.

·         It was noted in the report at Appendix B, Para 11.4 that there was an increase in the number of voids with staff having had to work differently during the pandemic to bring houses back into use. Members would be informed in writing of the financial impact of shortfall of rental income and council tax.

·         It was asked if issues being faced now would affect how the authority managed three to four years in the future. It was reported the authority was in a good position and previous actions taken over a number of years to make sure it had good levels of reserves meant the authority had been able to be resilient during the pandemic.

The Chair added that it was been the careful management of finances over the years had helped the authority survive the current situation and would be the right foundation for moving forward.

AGREED:

1.    That the report be noted.