Agenda item

The report sets out the Council’s financial position at Quarter 2 of the 2025/26 financial year.

The Panel received a report which set out the Council’s financial position at Q2 of the 2025/2026 financial year. The report was originally published as part of the agenda papers to Cabinet on 9^th December 2025. The report was included in the published agenda pack at pages 49-104. The following arose in discussion of this item:

1. The Panel sought clarification about the report seemingly indicating that significant improvements had been made in relation to Housing Benefit overpayments. In response, the Chair commented that this sat under Cllr Chandwani’s portfolio and under OSC’s remit. It was commented that OSC recently received an update on this, and that the challenge related to not receiving full benefit reimbursement from DWP for supported accommodation. There were also long running issues arising from the migration of housing benefit to Universal Credit. OSC made a recommendation to support the Council in seeking full reimbursement from the DWP.
2. The Chair queried why the in-year savings target was RAG rated as green, given that £101k of a £3.4m overall savings target had been delivered. In response, the Corporate Director of Adults, Housing & Health advised that the delivery of savings were always anticipated to be backloaded within the financial year. There were a number of things that came into play in the later parts of the year, including rent convergency which went live in September. The majority of the delivery within the acquisitions programme was also due to be delivered in the latter half of the financial year. The Corporate Director reiterated that the in-year savings were expected to be delivered by year end.
3. In relation to the HRA capital forecasts for 2025/26, the Panel queried why most of these were RAG rated amber/red for time. In response, Cllr Williams advised that this was due to delays with the implementation of the partnering contract. Officers advised that the Section 20 consultation had been completed and that they would be engaging with contractors in January, with work expected to begin in April.
4. The Panel noted that the underspend in the HRA capital delivery programme was historically much bigger than in the General Fund and queried whether a failure to spend capital funding in a given year meant that funding was lost. In response, Cllr Williams advised that nothing was lost and that the works would be reprofiled to the following year. The Cabinet Member advised that  a lot of the delays stemmed from the Building Safety Regulator and the backlog of approvals from that body. Officers provided assurances that spend had been reprofiled in order to meet the 100% decency target by 2028.
5. In response to a question about reductions in HRA spending and how this would be monitored, the Cabinet Member commented that the re-profiling of budgets was a continuous journey, in order to ensure that projects could be delivered.
6. The Chair welcomed the progress made to date in reductions in the prevention and outflow of temporary accommodation numbers.

RESOLVED

That the Panel noted the contents of the report.