Issue - meetings

1.1.     The purpose of this report is to appraise the Housing & Wellbeing Committee of its forecast outturn against the 2023/24 budgets, which were approved by Full Council at its meeting of 9 March 2023.

The Chair invited the Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer to introduce the report.  He drew members’ attention to the anticipated Revenue Budget overspend of £158k, but advised that this would be countered by other areas of underspend across the council’s consolidated budget that would be reported to the Policy and Finance Committee on 8 February 2024.   He drew members attention to the situation concerning the HRA outturn overspend which had deteriorated by £351k since quarter 2, mainly due to the £230k spend on the repairs and maintenance budget due to increasing demand and continuing inflation rises.  It was predicted that the HRA balance would fall to £551k by the end of the financial year.  He reminded members of the £2million minimum balance that the council had set itself for the HRA reserve, and also explained that the statutory requirement was that the balance should not fall below zero.  He confirmed that once the procurement framework had been implemented that should have a positive impact on the HRA balance and was expected to reduce costs.   

The Chair invited questions and comments from members.  A member queried the reasons for the Repairs and Maintenance account’s adverse forecast, in respect of service demand and inflation, as well as the impact of planned maintenance works.  The Group Head of Housing acknowledged that a lack of investment for planned works would have an incumbent impact on the responsive repairs budget, which was currently happening to a certain extent.  Officers were in the process of developing a programme of works, which required an increase in investment built into the 2024-25 budget.  It was important that the Council had a proper understanding of the condition of the council’s stock.  In order to achieve this a census stock condition survey would be carried out  It was likely that the Committee would be asked to consider a report during 2024-25 that asked them to agree further investment over the next few years to improve the condition of the housing stock. He agreed to keep members updated on the progress officers made in  understanding the condition of the housing stock.  Responding to a comment made about the accuracy of past assessments, he advised that the previous stock condition survey data is not considered robust enough for new regulatory requirements. Had the data been maintained at the rate of 20% per year over the past 5 years, we might be in a different position, but a new census stock condition survey was required.  

.   

The Committee noted the report.