Purpose

To receive the revenue and capital budget monitor for
quarter 1 (April to June 2024).

Decision

To approve the following:
 

General Fund (Revenue) – A projected outturn of
£171.568m, being £11.817m overspend (7%) on an approved
budget of £160.202m.

 

A virement of £1.000m from the Contingency
budget to the Corporate Resources budget in respect of a savings
target for Business Rates Income that will not be realised until
2025/26  . 

 

Subject to appropriate due diligence, develop the
suite of Recovery Actions to deliver mitigations of up to
£11.423m as outlined in Appendix 9 .

 

Approve the following actions:

 

 

£m

Adult Social Care reserve – Defer recruitment for an
additional Financial Assessment and Benefits Officer

0.150

Better Care Fund reserve – utilise carry
forward

2.667

Public Health reserve – Uncommitted reserve to meet
eligible public health overspend within the General Fund

0.081

TOTAL

2.898

 
 
 
That Cabinet note the following based on
the above approvals:
 
 

 

General Fund (GF) (Capital) – The revised capital
budget (approved at July cabinet) is £35.428m with a
projected outturn of £33.560m resulting in underspend of
£1.868m.

 

Housing Revenue Account (HRA Revenue)
– A surplus of
£3.734m is forecast against a budgeted surplus of
£3.477m, a favourable variance of £0.257m.

 

Housing Revenue Account (HRA Capital)
– The revised
capital budget (approved at July cabinet) is £25.003m with a
projected outturn of £16.941m resulting in an underspend of
£8.062m.

 

Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG)
– There is an
overspend of £0.155m in the Schools Block due to higher than
anticipated costs for growth in 2024/25. Further details are set
out in para. 7 of this report including the risks

 

Council Tax and Business Rates
collection – As at 30 June 2024, actual council tax collected
was 28.05% (target 29.10%) and actual business rate collected was
29.75% (target 30.5%).

 

Sundry Debt – Total outstanding sundry debt including
adult social care debt as at 30 June 2024 was £13.848m. Based
on the age profile of the debt, £5.342m is the calculated bad
debt provision (39%).

 

Financial Resilience – The Council remains committed to
improving financial resilience, moving towards financial
sustainability and improvement in governance and process as laid
out in the Directions issued by Government and a capitalisation
direction for exceptional finance support in 2024/25.

 

Once the Council has concluded the outstanding
financial accounts, a formal financial resilience statement will be
prepared.