Issue - meetings

To consider the head of finance’s report. 

Cabinet considered the head of finance’s report on revenue and capital budget monitoring for the period April to August 2019, the first five months of the financial year.  This showed a projected revenue overspend of £481,000 at the year-end (31 March 2020), and a projected capital underspend of £186,000. 

The Cabinet member for finance reported on the financial constraints the council faced, such as the unknown level of future government funding and the limitation on council tax increases.  Work had begun to assess budgetary performance at the end of November 2019.  Officers and Cabinet members were working to ensure there was no overspend at the end of the current financial year to avoid impacting on next year’s budget. 

Cabinet members noted that some elements of the budget were outside of the council’s control, such as income from planning fees (the council could not control the number of planning applications it received), and housing benefit (primarily due to a reduction in the net income for housing benefits overpayments as more people now claimed Universal Credit).  Both of these could have a significant impact on the final outturn. 

Cabinet asked if future budget monitoring reports could show both income and expenditure figures rather than just net income.  Officers agreed to explore this for next year’s reports. 

Cabinet also asked officers to consider providing basic training to all councillors on the budget preparation process and on the Medium Term Financial Plan.  Cabinet asked officers to present a simpler version of the Medium Term Financial Plan to the councillor training session, to clearly show how the bottom line was calculated. 

RESOLVED: to note the budget monitoring report for the period April to August 2019.