The Lead Member for Finance and Economic Development introduced the latest Financial Update report.

The Lead Member informed that he had presented the latest financial update and the associated background to the report to Members from all parties and to the appropriate scrutiny panels.

Cabinet were informed that the financial update reports had shown that since July 2018 there had been early pressures on the budget mainly due to the increased demand and cost of children in care, pressure on parking income and recovery of . debt from revenues and benefits.  It was reported that there would be a NET pressure of around £1.5 million. 

The budget position was being driven by national pressures.  The current pressures were being partially mitigated resulting in a net service pressure of £3,044,000 along with an additional £1,500,000 from the Business Rates Pilot, leaving a financial pressure across the Council of £1,544,000 as detailed in appendix A.

The Lead Member informed that at the Corporate Services O&S Panel Cllr Brimacombe had used the analogy of a graceful swan swimming across the lake whilst paddling franticly below the water. The report provided additional appendices detailed what had occurred ‘bellow the water’ and actions taken to get to the current financial outturn position.

With regards to children in Care the Lead Member for Finance and Economic Development informed that an additional child entering the system could cost between £50,000 t over £150,000 per year. In forecasting the year end position it had been assumed that the national and local increase in demand and cost would continue. 

The Lead Member also informed that the other major area of pressure was the projected income from parking.  When setting the budget the Lead Member had informed that there had been a policy decision not to increase parking provision for local residents but ,after benchmarking, to increase parking charges proportionally for visitor parking.  What had not been expected was that there would be a shift in an increase of resident parking and thus a corresponding drop in projected income due to increased use of the vantage card. 

Officers were asked to provide a range of realistic mitigating actions which had also been appended with a matrix of delivery risk.   There were also additional funding opportunities such as higher than expected revenue from Business Rates Pooling.

The Council’s aggregated usable reserves remained in a healthy position at £8,545,000 (10% of budget) which was in excess of the £5,860,000 (6.87% of budget) recommended minimum level set at Council in February 2018.  The Lead Member reiterated the report’s recommendations and informed that the projected trends would be taken into account when setting next year’s budget. 

The Chairman informed that there would be an additional £1.29 million Adult Social Care  funding allocated to next year’s budget.

The Leader of the Opposition reported that back in 2015 she had raised concern about the rising costs of adult social care, children social care and the increased demand.   Yet the budget remained stagnant and council tax  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6