i) To note the final revenue outturn for the year is an overspend on services of £0.757m which reduces to an underspend of £1.460m when including unallocated contingency budgets and changes to funding budgets (para 4);

ii) To note that as a result of this, the general fund reserve has increased from £8.753m to £10.213m (para 4); and

iii) To note the forecast capital outturn is expenditure of £21.663m against a budget of £76.56m (para 13).

Cabinet considered the 2022/23 Revenue Outturn report which detailed the final outturn against budget for the 202223 financial year and included the revenue and capital budgets along with the financial reserve position at year end.

Councillor Jones, Deputy Leader of the Council and lead member for Finance introduced the report by stating that the final revenue outturn for the year there had been an overspend on service budgets of £757k, the contingency funding had been applied which had left £1.46m to be added to the Council’s general reserve which currently stood at £10.2m. 

Councillor Jones explained that the minimum level for the general reserve was currently £7.9m and the optimum would be between £12m to £15m. She added that the minimum levels being set in the budget were increasing year on year due to the Council’s increased risks.

Councillor Jones focused on the following pressures:

·       Adult Services had contributed £1.2m to the previous years’ service budget overspend. This had been explained as an increase in older people placement numbers and the unit cost. During covid there was an increase in care home admittances from hospitals into care homes and she observed this seemed to be a continuing trend.

·       Parking Season tickets, due to new working patterns, had not returned to pre-covid levels

·       Energy inflation was affecting the Council’s leisure centre utility costs for example increased costs to heat the swimming pool

·       Unfulfilled positions had offset some of the Council’s budget overspend but she reflected that these positions were important to provide adequate services to the borough’s residents. She stated that the Council must understand and resolve any recruitment issues to ensure these positions, especially the key roles, were filled as soon as possible.

Councillor Jones highlighted that on page 29 of the agenda pack and within appendix A it set out significant Capital slippage which had meant that the Council had £779k underspend on the Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) that was not expected and this had been offset by the £548k increase in interest payments on Council borrowing. Within the 2022/23 financial year the Council had received a number of ‘one off’ funding payments and this could not be relied upon for 2023/24.

Councillor Jones reiterated that she had concerns regarding the levels of savings targets given the known pressures on services but stated that Cabinet would work with the budget as inherited to mitigate those pressures through the year. She stated that years of council tax freezes and cuts, while austerity reduced council funding by around 30%, had left the council with significant financial constraints and a lack of capacity to provide services – people were seeing this on a daily basis across the borough. There was a significant financial challenge to address in the Medium Term.

Councillor Price reflected that savings on posts was a cost to the Council in its services and queried what was being done to consider how to recruit to the positions.

Stephen Evans, Chief Executive advised the meeting that it was difficult to recruit to certain professional roles since the pandemic especially within children’s and adult’s social care, planning and other regulatory roles for example. He stated that there were recruitment challenges across the local authority sector and the Council needed to consider the terms and conditions it was able to offer to prospective recruits. Where savings were proposed on the basis of not recruiting to a vacant post this would have been assessed in terms of impact on the wider service delivery.    

Councillor Price reflected that the budget for the current year had included a number of unidentified savings within the Place directorate and she was concerned when looking at the outturn report how these savings would be achieved.

Councillor Jones noted those concerns had been raised before. She stated that for the budget process going forward that savings needed to be viable, worked through and not based on a ‘review’.

Councillor Hill, lead member for Highways and Traffic, Customer Service Centre and Employment drew colleagues’ attention to the Job Fair event held on Tuesday 27 June at Maidenhead Library. He advised that officers attending had been positive about the possibility for recruiting to the vacancies. He reported that the relaxed format had worked well to encourage people to come and ask questions.

The Chief Executive appreciated the feedback and advised that along with such events the Council was looking at various career pathways to attract younger people and people wishing to retrain into the Council such as apprenticeships and the management graduate scheme.

Cabinet noted the report and that:

i)    the final revenue outturn for the year was an overspend on services of £0.757m which would reduce to an underspend of £1.460m when including unallocated contingency budgets and changes to funding budgets (para 4);

ii)   as a result of this, the general fund reserve had increased from £8.753m to £10.213m (para 4); and

iii)  the forecast capital outturn was expenditure of £21.663m against a budget of £76.56m (para 13).