Agenda item

The Budget Monitoring report sets out the Capital, Housing Revenue and General Fund Revenue budget performance to the end of December 2020. 

The Cabinet

            RESOLVED – That

(1)  The report in Appendix 1 be noted;

(2)  A transfer to earmarked reserves of £7.865 m for s31 Grant received in 2020/21 and £1.326m for in year Collection Fund losses be approved; and

(3)  The action taken to mitigate the Council’s net expenditure due to the Covid-19 pandemic be noted.

The Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Corporate Support introduced this item confirming that financial performance was monitored on a regular basis to ensure that spending was in line with Council policies and that net expenditure was contained within overall budget limits.  The original budget for 2020/21 had been significantly affected by the Covid pandemic, detail of which had been set out in the report.

Councillor Oppler explained that this report had a close link to the next agenda item being the Budget 2021/22 as it provided the latest General Fund Balance forecast for March 2021 and provided an indication of the level of likely capital carry forward.

The Financial Services Manager then addressed the key highlights in the report covering Budget Monitoring for the third quarter. It was emphasised that this year had been subject to significant uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic which had also resulted in significant additional expenditure and loss of income.  To mitigate this, expenditure has been reviewed and controlled tightly.  The Council had also been in receipt of significant additional government support which had been set out in the report at Page 15 showing that the General Fund (GF) variation against expected current budget was (£1.124m) favourable which was an improvement of (£278k) from the previous month. 

The Council had been awarded £2.373m of non-ringfenced Covid-19 support and this had been detailed in Paragraph 2.3.1 of the report with the variation included (£723k) from the Sales Fees and Charges Compensation scheme, which had been claimed to the end of December 2020.  It was this sound financial management that allowed the Council to be prudent and earmark the Council Tax and Business Rate in year losses to match the anticipated drop in income for next year as set out at Paragraph 6.2.

It was explained that the £7.865m s31 grants received for the retail hospitality and leisure needed to be earmarked to be available for the corresponding loss of income next year. The estimated outturn General Fund balance as at the end of December 2020 was approximately £6.9m.  No further update was provided in relation to the Housing Revenue Account (HRA).

Finally, looking at Capital budget, it was pointed out that there would be significant carry forward into next year to enable the capital programme to catch up.  The delays were again mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

            In discussing the report, the Cabinet Member for Residential Services, Councillor Mrs Gregory asked a question in relation to the nightly paid monitoring in December 2020, the Covid expenditure was £333k.  Was the Council likely to receive any of this money back from Government?  The Financial Services Manager responded confirming that it was unlikely that the Council would receive any specific grant and that it would be included as part of the non-specific general grant that the Council received.

The Cabinet

            RESOLVED - That

(1)          The report in Appendix 1 be noted;

(2)          A transfer to earmarked reserves of £7.865 m for s31 Grant received in 2020/21 and £1.326m for in year Collection Fund losses be approved; and

(3)          The action taken to mitigate the Council’s net expenditure due to the Covid-19 pandemic be noted.

The Cabinet confirmed its decision as per Decision Notice C/051/08022021, a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of the Minutes.