Purpose

To provide the Council’s outturn position for 2025-2026 compared with approved budgets and targets and performance update against the Our City: Our Plan priorities.

Decision

That Cabinet noted:

1. The Council has again managed its money well and delivered within budget. Overall, the General Fund revenue outturn position for 2025-2026 is a balanced budget after funding redundancy costs and making contributions to earmarked reserves and general balances in line with the approved strategy. 
2. That the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) revenue outturn for the year was overall within budget, after contributing to capital financing thereby reducing the borrowing requirement and contributing to the HRA reserve.
3. That the capital programme has an outturn position of £70.2 million for the General Fund and £107.5 million for the Housing Revenue Account (HRA). A summary of the outturn is detailed in Section 8 of the report. A full detailed report on the Capital Outturn 2025-2026 including Quarter One Capital Monitoring 2026-2027 would be reported to Cabinet on 8 July 2026.
4. That, the Deputy Director of Finance had approved write-off of debts against the expected credit loss provision as detailed in Appendix 7 to the report.
5. That, the Deputy Director of Finance had approved contributions to and from reserves as part of year end processes. Reserves and provisions are further detailed in Section 6, Appendix 8 and Appendix 9 to the report.
6. The level of the Council’s earmarked reserves and provisions as at 31 March 2026 and the purposes for which they are being held, as detailed in Section 6, Appendix 8 and 9 to the report.
7. That, the recommendations detailed in the report are in line with the Reserves Strategy approved by Council on 25 February 2026.
8. That, the Section 151 Officer considers that the overall level of all reserves and provisions are sufficient to meet the likely level of obligations to be met from reserves and provisions in the short term.
9. That the figures quoted in the report are still subject to statutory audit by Grant Thornton as part of the 2025-2026 accounts closedown process.
10. That, the Deputy Director of Finance had approved essential virements in relation to recharges and year end processed.

That Cabinet approved:

1. The write-off of debts against expected credit loss provision as detailed in Appendix 7 to the report.
2. The updated Strategic Risk Register as detailed in Appendix 6 to the report.
3. The delegation to the Deputy Director of Finance to approve virements in relation to identified savings in 2026-2027, as detailed in paragraph 4.5 of the report. 
4. Expenditure from provisions for their purposes as set out in Appendix 9 to the report, up to the value held in each provision as at 31 March 2026.
5. Delegated authority to the Cabinet Member for Resources in consultation with the Section 151 Officer and the relevant Director to allocate funds from reserves as detailed in Section 6 of the report.