The Committee received a report that presented the 2020-21 provisional outturn budget monitoring report for the General Fund, Dedicated Schools Budget (DSB), Housing Revenue Account (HRA), progress made against savings targets and the Council’s capital programme. It also provided projections on General Fund earmarked reserves and updates on

provisional outturn impacts of Covid on the Councils finances in 2020-21. It was noted that going forward this year, the Chair was keen for the Scrutiny Sub-Committees to take on some of the responsibility of scrutinising the budget for their respective areas. Thereby helping to prepare for a robust discussion when the Committee comes to scrutinise the budget in January 2022. The Chair then welcomed and thanked Executive Mayor John Biggs; Kevin Bartle interim Corporate Director for Resources; and Hitesh Jolapara, interim Divisional Director, Finance, Procurement and Audit for attending this meeting. The main points of the discussion maybe summarised as follows:

The Committee noted that:

v  One of the scrutiny functions key aims this year is to provide a robust scrutiny of the budget and engage in the budget process as early as possible.

v  A briefing session had been held last week to inform Scrutiny’s understanding of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan and Savills report. The Chair thanked Councillor Danny Hassell and Councillor Rachel Blake for attending this session. This had provided a useful response to some of the issues that Scrutiny had raised, and it was planned to submit further questions on the budget.

v  There may also be a follow up at another meeting to investigate this matter in further detail.

v  The Outturn report must be considered within the context of Covid where the uncertainty has proved difficult to forecast and draw accurate conclusions. Accordingly, the Committee asked a wide range of questions on the report including (i) How are the Council encouraging and supporting business to reopen and/or new businesses to open; (ii) Reflections on the rationale for growing reserves and why ‘earmarked’ reserves are not being used ; (iii) A request for an update on the additional COVID funding received from the Government for 2021/22 plus any roll over from 2020/21; and (iv) Given the underspend on the HRA, and level of improvement works required on estates, what is the rationale for squeezing day to day expenditure through the HRA and Tower Hamlets Homes (THH) management fees.  Which has caused pressure on the extent of the work conducted on estates. Accordingly the Committee requested a note from the Corporate Director for Place to provide further details on this.

Accordingly, as a result of discussions on progress on the report the Overview and Scrutiny Committee agreed that:

1. The Corporate Director for Place be asked to provide further details on the rationale for squeezing day to day expenditure through the HRA and THH management fees; and
2. It would submit a number of pre-decision questions on this item as they had not had the time to ask all questions during this discussion that they  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8