Agenda item

[Report of the Director of Finance. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Finance and Strategic Regeneration.]

This budget monitoring report covers the position at Quarter 1 (Period 3) of the 2019/20 financial year including General Fund (GF) Revenue, Capital, Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) budgets.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Strategic Regeneration introduced the report, which set out the Council’s Finance position at quarter 1 of this financial year. This included information on the balances of the General Fund, Capital budget, Housing Revenue Account and Dedicated Schools grant budgets.

The Cabinet Member was pleased to report an improved budgetary position at quarter one, compared to the same period in 2018/19. He highlighted the positive impact of budget management strategies agreed by the Cabinet previously, which were having the intended impact. The Live budgeting agenda was also referred to which explored working more agilely as an organisation and enabling the Council to take advantage of opportunities that arise, helping to manage issues outside of the control of the Council.

The Cabinet Member referred to section 6 of the report which outlined the overspend/ underspend in Council departments and advised that he and senior finance officers were having monthly meeting with Cabinet Member Adults and Health and Director of Adults and Health to monitor and discuss reductions in the overspend. Similar meetings would be held with the respective officers and Cabinet Members for Children’s and Highways.

In response to questions from the Leader of the Council, Cllr Brabazon and Councillor Morris, the following information was noted.

• The Cabinet Member was comfortable that appropriate actions were being implemented to meet budget targets for the end of the financial year. Meetings with Cabinet colleagues and senior officers were taking place where there was overspend.

• With regards to the overspend in Community Safety and Enforcement, set out at the second bullet point in paragraph 6.16, a meeting had been arranged to discuss these issues and the Cabinet Member agreed to provide the outcome to Cllr Brabazon.

• With regards to the virement set out at appendix 5 for approval, and related to realignment of IT salary budgets to reflect the transition back to an in-house service, this was a repositioning of the budget and the Director of Finance agreed to provide a written response to Cllr Morris outlining the background leading to this proposed virement.

• The Council were making representations to government to seek funding from the contingency budget allocated to Brexit preparations. All London Councils were making a joint representation to the government on the Brexit funding  issue through London Councils. Council departments also had an officer working on Brexit preparations and there was consideration being given to the impact on suppliers and provision of services.

·        There was a weekly monitoring of the green waste budget to consider how to bring this in line with budget projections. Consideration was being to the income target as well as a review of the bulky waste collection and green waste collections. The service were looking at what actions other boroughs were taking forward  and exploring  changes in resident behaviour on recycling and fly tipping. This would culminate in a review being considered at Cabinet by the end of the year.

RESOLVED

1. To note the forecast revenue outturn for the General Fund (GF), including savings pressures, of £5.2m overspend (£13.4m Qtr1 18/19) (Section 6, Table 1, and Appendix 1).

2. To note the net HRA forecast of £0.2m underspend (Section 6, Table 2, and Appendix 2).

3. To note the net DSG forecast of £1.8m overspend, the actions being taken to seek to address this and the potential implications for the GF (Section 7 and Table 3).

4. To note the forecast budget savings position in 2019/20 which indicates that 8.1% (£1.1m) will not be achieved. (Section 8, Table 4 and Appendix 3). This is incorporated into the GF budget pressure in recommendation 3.1.

5. To approve the proposed budget adjustments, virements and rephrasing to the capital programme as set out in table 5 and Appendix 4 and note the forecast expenditure of £208.45 in 2019/20 which equates to 75.5% of the revised capital budget (Section 9, Table 5 and Appendix 4).

6. To approve the revenue budget virements as set out in Appendix 5.

Reason for Decision

A strong financial management framework, including oversight by Members and senior management, is an essential part of delivering the Council’s priorities and statutory duties.

Alternative Options Considered

The report of the management of the Council’s financial resources is a key part of the role of the Director of Finance (Section 151 Officer) in helping members to exercise their role and no other options have therefore been considered.