Cabinet considered the report regarding the latest Financial update.

The Lead Member for Asset Management and Commercialisation, Finance, and Ascot informed Cabinet that the report asked Cabinet to approve three capital virements which he would come back to.  The headline for the Month 10 Finance Monitoring Report was a projected underspend of £239K an increase of £138K from month 8.

The council was on course to deliver three consecutive years of underspends which was unheard of in recent times. This had been achieved by improved financial governance, cultural change which had been led to a greater emphasis on delivering to budget.

Projected savings are actively monitored, however, Covid has prevented savings in Adult Social Care and Place and the report shows there are £2,229 of unachieved savings, however, I am pleased to repots these costs will be absorbed by the services within existing budgets.

The budget included a £1.3M contingency to cover for undelivered savings but thanks to great work by officers this would not be needed.  This £1.3M plus other unused contingencies and an underspend of £413K in corporate budgets would be transferred to reserves.

The Lead Member informed that there were some other movements worthy of note;

Forecast parking income and permit fees had increased by £250K based on current forecasts. There had been an increase of £150K in income from weddings in the registrar’s service. But these were offset by a number of overspends.

We had received £804K more Contain Outbreak Management Fund of which £400K would be allocated to 2022/23 budget. 

There was now a forecasting a general reserve of £7.298M, £598K above the minimum.

Cabinet was asked to approve a number of virements. With an existing contract expiring at the end of this month for the current IDOX system it was proposed to introduce an externally hosted Cloud based solution at a cost of £225K. It was proposed to vire this from Neighbourhood Plans, Joint Minerals and waste and IT strategy.

Second to approve the use of public sector decarbonisation scheme funding of £1.566m to replace oil fire boilers with gas boilers plus other sustainability improvements in five primary schools, this allows £476K to be returned to School Conditions Allocations contingency.

It was also proposed to approve the part Virement in appendix J that was under Part II section of the agenda due to its confidentiality.

The Chairman reiterated that there had been three years of sound budget management that had resulted in three years underspend. 

Cllr Werner raised concern that the paper either showed good financial control with little change between reporting periods or at year end would be late financial burdens.  He was concerned about the failure to meet Adult Social Care Savings, that transformation projects savings should only be added once they had been realised and that the council needed to address rising inflation by moving short term debt into more appropriate long term debt. Was action being taken now for the future.

The Lead Member replied that variances were higher at the start of the financial year and stabilised towards the end when the picture was clear.  He had already reported the variances between the last report and this one.  The saving targets had been hit by the pandemic and this had clearly been reported.  With regards to borrowing there had already been a shift from short term to long term and officers were working on a revision of the MTFS.

Cllr Jones mentioned that the forecast general reserve balance was £239k above budget but she asked how paragraph 4.3.4 aligned with this because it sounded that this included the contingency budget going into reserves.  With regards to the savings shortfall were they mitigated from a one off shortfall and how would this be budgeted for next years budget.  With regards to the proposed virements she asked that they had been taken from budgets that did not need them, such as the neighbourhood plans that would be required.  She also thought that adult social care demand had been reduced at the start of the pandemic, how would the ASC cap affect the budget in 2023?

The Lead Member responded that the mentioned paragraph was as said that contingencies that were not required would be moved into reserves.  The S151 strategy in the budget was to increase our reserves were possible. Savings not met had been mitigated by services within existing budgets, if this had been from one off grants then the contingency reserves would have been used.  With regards to the virements this had been recommended by officers and could have been taken under delegated authority.   All authorities waited to see what the ASC cap impact would be.

Resolved unanimously:  that Cabinet notes the report and:

i)            notes the Council’s projected revenue and capital forecast outturn for 2021/22;

ii)          approves capital budget virements totalling £0.255m (paragraph 17.5);

iii)        recommends that Council approve capital budget virements of £1.567m in respect of funding secured from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (paragraph 17.6); and

iv)        approves the capital virement in confidential Appendix J.