Cabinet considered the report that set out the final outturn position for revenue and capital expenditure against budget for the financial year 2019/20.

The Lead Member for Finance and Ascot informed Cabinet that the report  before them asked Cabinet to:

i)          Note the council’s projected outturn position for 2019-20.

ii)         Note the budget movements since the January 2020 reported as part of the          budget setting process in February 2020.;

iii)         Approves Capital programme slippage and variances as detailed in Appendix       D.

The Lead Member highlighted errors on page 73 of the report. It was planned to bring the Treasury Management paper to Cabinet in May but this is delayed to June and in the text in para 13.0 Tables 4 and 5 should read 17 and 18 respectively.

Cabinet were informed that the costs associated with C-19 were shown separately for all services so there was transparency between the outturn and the impact of the crisis.  This was additional work for the Finance team but 2020/21 Finance update reports would continue with this methodology.

MHCLG required a monthly return on C-19 costs and It was important to the Administration that we delivered the budget set earlier this year and therefore considered the impact of COVID 19 separately. 

He informed that as mentioned since he had become the Lead Member transparency within the reports was important and thus there were 40 pages or appendices that contain considerable detail.

The Lead Member made reference to appendix G which presented variances for services.  Before he considered these he asked Cabinet to note that the approved revenue budget was overspent by £4,224,000 but £1,827,000 of this is directly related to C-19 and is paid for by the first £2,753,000 of funding from MHCLG. The balance of this and a further £4,149,000 of funding had been placed into earmarked reserves.

The budget papers presented at Council in February forecasted reserves of £6.521,000 but reserves have increase by £1.71 M and now stand at £8.231M

In January Adult Social Care forecast an overspend of just over £1M but this had been turned round and there would have been a modest surplus had we not to taken a COVID related provision of £157K for bad debt. In a challenging year this would have been a pleasing result for the Director of Adults, Health and Commissioning.

In Children’s services an overspend of £1,94 M was reported some £325K higher than in January. However, Achieving for Children had recently been rated as Good by OFSTED so they are now in exactly the right place to drive their transformational programme forward.

With regards to the Managing Directors portfolio parking, the biggest income generator, saw revenues down £900K before the impact of C-19 which further reduced income by £422K. Highways declared an overspend of £617K which was made up of licensing income, subsidised bus routes, street lighting energy and planning. The impact of COVID was £140K.  These costs were offset by considerable savings on Waste collection and disposal of £579K resulting in a total overspend of £1,566 K

Commissioning, Support and Central Services included concessionary fares, Management, Communications & Marketing, Human Resources, Law & Governance and Finance.  The outcome was an overspend of £40K but after C-19 related costs of £305K this increased to £345K.

Communities Directorate report an overspend of £549K mostly associated with IT and Revenues and Benefits but this had increased to £1.23M by C-19 related issues including a significant loss of leisure income.

The Place Directorate delivered a balance budget but for C-19 related costs of £21k for rehousing in temporary accommodation and a provision of £68K against commercial debtors. The Housing overspend, £511K of this related to a number of debts and bad debt provisions.

Cabinet were also informed that In the past year the Finance team had been working through a number of legacy issues.  Some of this work had led to the acceptance of liabilities such as in Housing but for many others the outcome had been positive.

With regards to Capital Cabinet were informed that in December slippage in the capital programme had been £7.2M of the nett £57.7 m. budget. The outturn report now shows slippages to be £32m.  £14M of this slippage related to a number of significant projects that were delayed related to COVID issues.  Due to these issues a review of the capital programme had been instigated.

The Leader thanked the Lead Member and all those associated with producing such a comprehensive report. There had been a lot of work being undertaken to close down the overspend , there had been savings produced and excellent transformation initiatives.  C-19 has had a huge impact on all authorities.  He welcomed the detail and transparency of the report.

The Deputy Chairman of Cabinet, Adult Social Care, Children’s Services, Health and Mental Health reiterated that there had been excellent work under his portfolio and if it was not for the current crisis performance against the pressures had been well met.  There had been excellent work with NHS colleagues especially with adult social care. He acknowledged the good work undertaken by children’s services that resulted in the rating mentioned.  There had been good progress around high cost placements and he reminded that they had been rated in the top 15 across the country for adult social care.

Cllr Jones mentioned that she welcomed the increased transparency contained within the report and the cipfa concerns. She reported that there were a number of concerns that she would discuss off line but she was concerned about the budget modelling as there were large variances outside C-19.  She questioned if the public health funding had already been allocated, if the savings for children’s survives in 2020 could be achieved and if high needs block savings should be built within the budget rather than being a challenge.

Cllr Baldwin questioned if the level of reserves were adequate as they had been set pre C-19 and he also questioned the level of reserves set for business rates as this seemed very low. In response he was informed that the level set for business rates was set on the previous year so the current situation would form next years level.

The Leader informed that they continued to lobby government and C-19 continued to have a major impact on the councils finances.  

Cllr Tisi asked for further information on the impact of parking revenue but was happy to discuss this off line.

Resolved unanimously: That Cabinet:

i)          Notes the council’s projected outturn position for 2019-20.

ii)         Notes the budget movements since the January 2020 reported as part of the budget setting process in February 2020.;

iii)        Approves Capital programme slippage and variances as detailed in Appendix D.