Purpose

The Cabinet will be asked to approve the Council’s final revenue and capital outturn position for 2025/26 and, if necessary, any appropriate in-year budget adjustments.

Decision

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note that the General Fund provisional outturn position for 2025/26 was £238.730m, which represented an overspend of £0.278m against the revised budget of £238.703m, as detailed in section 2 of the report;

(ii)  Agree the transfer of £0.278m from the General Reserve to achieve a balanced outturn position for 2025/26;

(iii)  Note the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) provisional outturn position for 2025/26 was forecast to breakeven, as detailed in section 4 of the report;

(iv)  Note that the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) provisional outturn position for 2025/26 was a net overspend of £4.015m and that 90% of SEND deficit was expected to be written off by the Government through the SEND Reform Plan, as detailed in section 5 of the report;

(v)  Note the performance of the Strategic Commercial Asset Management Delivery Framework (previously known as Investment and Acquisition Strategy (IAS)) and Treasury Management during 2025/26, as set out in sections 7 and 8 respectively of the report; and

(vi)  Note that the Capital Programme provisional outturn position for 2025/26 showed an underspend of £21.988m against a revised budget of £196.122m and approve the carry forwards to 2026/27, as detailed in section 9 and Appendices B and C to the report.