Issue - meetings

To consider the report on the Council’s financial position at the end of Quarter 1 of 2026/27.

The report included with this item was first published as part of the agenda papers for the Cabinet meeting on 15^th September 2026.

Attendees for this item were:

·       Cllr Johann Beckford, Cabinet Member for Finance & Corporate Services

·       Taryn Eves, Corporate Director of Finance & Resources and S151 Officer

·       Josephine Lyseight, Director of Finance and Deputy S151 Officer

·       Ann Graham, Corporate Director of Children’s Services

·       Jess Crowe, Corporate Director of Culture, Strategy & Communities

·       Laura Crouch, Head of Active Wellbeing

Cllr Johann Beckford introduced the report for this item and highlighted the following key points:

• The Council was now forecast to spend £374.8m in 2026/27 which was £21.7m above what had been budgeted for in March 2026.
• Much of this overspend resulted from base budget pressures but the report also highlighted savings required to meet the savings targets.
• On General Fund capital spending, the Quarter 1 forecast spend for the year was £234.4m against the budget of £344.49m.
• On Housing Revenue Account capital spending, the Quarter 1 forecast spend for the year was £310.7m against the budget of £376.9m.
• There was an additional overspend of £8.4m in the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) forecast which was largely caused by higher than expected SEND pressures.
• There was an overspend of £3.478m in the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), mainly due to temporary accommodation costs.
• There were therefore several areas where improvement was required before the end of the financial year to bring these back to the original budget position.

Taryn Eves then added the following points:

• As a Q1 report, this represented a very early forecast of the financial position at the year end and was based on a series of assumptions, many of which related to the large demand-led services. These were difficult to predict at this early stage and so the forecasts would be kept under review and were monitored by officers on a monthly basis.
• Of the overall £21.7m overspend, a total of £10.4m was across services and £6.3m at the corporate level. The £21.7m position was based on the figure before the application of the remaining corporate contingency which could be used to offset overspend.
• There would be a deeper review at the Q2 report of the treasury management side, including investment income and interest costs.
• There was a significant underspend on both capital budgets and the record of forecasting in this area was not good. A fundamental review of the existing capital programme was being carried out.
• The collection of council tax and business rates was above target (by 0.5% and 1.1% respectively), although the target had been reduced to 92.5% for the current year. It was possible that the target could be increased for the following year’s budget.
• The level of write-offs was included in the last section of the report. All but one of these was below £50k. The total write-off for the quarter was £2.1m of which 46% related to parking.

Cllr Beckford and Taryn Eves then responded to questions from the Committee:

• Cllr Jenner requested further explanation about the level of confidence to get the overspend back on track and what measures would be put in place. Taryn Eves  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33