Cabinet considered the latest Financial Update report.

The Lead Member for Finance and Ascot reported that he propose to say a few words and ask The Director of Resources, who was the architect of this report to explain her reporting strategy. He also asked Cllr. Carroll to comment on Adult Social Care and Children’s Service as well as the fully funded capital budget addition of £500K for SEND Special Provision.

The new format for the Finance monitoring provides more detail and is more transparent than any reported in the past.  He asked if publishing Finance update reports was enshrined in legislation, to his surprise, apart from the annual outturn report there was no legal obligation.

He said that the administration absolutely get that they are spending public money and it is important for those who have an interest, from councillors to residents and the local press that finance papers are regularly published, are clear, easy to read and carry a strong narrative.

The CIPFA consultants who worked on the 2020/21 budget suggested just four reports a year but the Director of Resources shared his view that this was too few and reports would be published bimonthly starting from this report in July.

A summary of the budget was shown in table 2 on page 196 which forecasts an adverse variance of £4.1M which will need to be supported from reserves, leaving just £1.85M which was below the minimum level.

Government had announced that it would refund Councils up to 75% of 95% of lost income and lost income is by far the most significant issue that we face. Very recent guidance advises that we will be able to include lost income associated with the schedule of fees and charges as published in the 2020/21 budget booklet. This excludes income from commercial properties and our Leisure offer which is managed by a charitable trust. Many other Council’s Leisure facilities are managed in the same way and we are hopeful that our Leisure losses will be included.  Whatever we receive from Government will be used to increase the level of reserves.

Had COVID 19 not happened, at the end of month 2 we would be reporting a favourable variance of £2.7 million. When this is added to the £1.7m reduction in the 2019/20 overspend reported in the Outturn report, we would be well on track not only to deliver a balance budget this year but with current savings of £4.4 million, exactly what the MTFS said we needed, to deliver a balance budget next year too. The clear message is that like Councils up and down the country our financial position has been derailed by Covid 19.

Finance monitoring is a best estimate of the outturn of the budget. Budget setting and finance monitoring is a shared responsibility between services and finance and robust finances depends upon strong working relationships.

 he close monitoring of Adult Social care costs is shown in Charts 1 and 2 on pages 201 and 202 which includes the detail maintained on the number of spot nursing placements for older people and the daily expenditure on homecare including the impact of COVID on the numbers and costs.

Parking revenue will be significantly hit by COVID 19.  The use of modelling by the team is based on past experience, income to date, the anticipated changes in demand as lockdown eases and the nature of past demand, which is a very solid approach to forecasting income. Charts 3 and 4 on page 205 show income loss and revenue growth for Windsor and Maidenhead. These charts reflect the fact that Windsor is driven by tourism and Maidenhead by commuters.

The impact of Covid 19 on our Leisure Centre income is profound and the Place Directorate forecasts no income in the present year and not to return to pre-covid income levels until beyond 2022/23. Table 11 on page 211 shows how this will significantly impact our MTFS.

Revenues & Benefits rightly feature more prominently in the report as CT and Business rates account for around £89M of our income. Despite COVID the collection rates are holding up quite well, surprisingly and inexplicable Business rate collection is 4% ahead of target at the end of June.

Managed by Louise Freeth, Head of Revenues & Benefits, Library and residential services, in the past months the Revenues and benefits team, have been under pressure as they administered £26M of Government grants to businesses, dealt with challenge from those businesses that did not qualify and managed four times the number of changes of circumstances for housing benefits. These staff deserve our special thanks.

Continuing Health Care is an ever-present risk. Fairly regularly the Council will propose that a resident in Adult Social Care should be managed by Health and the CCG at their cost or the CCG asserts a resident is no longer eligible for CHC and the cost of their support package should be borne by the Council. On page 203 the Director of Resource has included a section on CHC that clearly indicates the number of cases under review, explains the risks and importantly ensures that those risks remain very visible.

On Capital, a Capital Programme Review Board has been established and their first meeting led to the crystallisation of savings of over £2.4 M on the capital programme with the detail shown in appendix D on page 240.

A RAG rated savings report is included at appendix B, page 233. A narrative is provided where savings can no longer be made including remedial action planned to address underperformance and Mitigation Strategies. A shortfall in savings of £1.7M is anticipated which prompted the Director of Resources to release the £1.3 Million savings contingency.

The Director or Resources said that with regards to the key headlines it was important that this report showed the position as of month two and thus was forecasted on information then.  £8.1 million Covid funding had been included but some of this would have been for the previous financial year.  We are still awaiting full guidance on any claims for losses and she would be making this claim and signing it off so only legitimate claims would be made.

The Deputy Chairman of Cabinet, Adult Social Care, Children’s Services, Health and Mental Health said that with regards to his area of responsibility he was please more detail had been included so demand could be tracked, especially in adult social care where there would be a lot more demand management.  For children’s services a lot had been dome on commissioning on high cost placements to ensure vulnerable children getting stable care with more permanent social workers.   With regard to SEND there would be a report coming forward to Cabinet.

The Leader reiterated that had it not been for C-19 the budget strategy would be on track.  We still continue to lobby Government for resources for long term stability. 

Cllr Jones reported that this was a much better report and detailed.  She felt that some of the detail was not appropriate for Cabinet and could be better discussed at O&S.  she asked if it was possible to have an overview of borrowing going forward and asked why the magnet development did not cover the cost of the Braywick LC as previously informed. 

The Lead Member of Finance said that the Magnet LC had included all the land originally included it would have cover the new LC.

The Director of Resource said that in terms of borrowing some detail had been provided but this area will be covered by the new audit panel in the treasury management reports.

Resolved unanimously:  that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)     Notes the council’s projected revenue & capital position for 2020/21.

ii)    Notes the budget movements;

iii)   Approves the Capital variances and slippage.

iv)   Approves a fully funded capital budget addition of £500,000 for SEND Special Provision. See 11.2 for further information.

v)    Approves a virement of £200,000 from the Secondary Expansions Risk Contingency to Bisham General Refurbishment. See 11.3 for further information.

vi)   Approves a fully funded capital budget addition of £87,000 for a Wider Area Growth Study. See 11.4 for further information.

vii)Approves a fully funded capital budget addition of £140,000 for the Emergency Active Travel Fund. See 11.5 for further information.

viii)           Approves a fully funded capital budget addition of £381,000 for design and construction changes to Braywick Leisure Centre. See 11.6 for further information.