The Pre-Decision Scrutiny Questions and officer responses were noted.

DECISION

1.    To note the Council’s projected outturn position against General Fund, Dedicated Schools Budget, Housing Revenue Account and earmarked reserves for 2021-22, based on forecasts as at 30^th September 2021;

2.    To note the reserves position of the Council is uncertain pending the closure of the statement of accounts for the period 2016 – 2021;

3.    To note the Council’s projected outturn position against General Fund and Housing Revenue Account capital programme approved budgets, based on forecasts as at 30th September 2021;

4.    To note that there are no equalities implications directly resulting from this report, as set out in Section 4 of the report.

Action by:

INTERIM CORPORATE DIRECTOR, RESOURCES (K. BARTLE)

(Head of Strategic Finance (Chief Accountant) (A. Khan)

Councillor Candida Ronald, Cabinet Member for Resources and the Voluntary Sector introduced the regular budget monitoring report. She began by highlighting the challenges being faced due to cuts in government funding, the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of Brexit. The overall position was currently of an end of year £300k deficit. However, there were significant uncertainties in those figures. She took Cabinet through more details on the budget including reserves levels (much already allocated). The savings target for the year had been revised to £20 million with some more savings identified for future years.

She highlighted the importance of stability of funding and that detail was currently awaited on government funding. The government was also expecting that the council would be raising its council tax by the maximum allowed percentage increases over the coming years.

Finally, she highlighted the good news stories of the various capital projects planned across the borough.

Councillor Rachel Blake, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Wellbeing highlighted the expected additional £4 million of costs should current NHS patient discharge funding comes to an end as planned.

The Mayor thanked Councillor Ronald for her presentation of the report and officers for their work. He noted the concerns over future funding levels including around adult social care and noted the Pre-Decision Scrutiny Question and officer response and proposed the recommendations as set out. These were unanimously agreed by the Members present and it was:

RESOLVED

1.    To note the Council’s projected outturn position against General Fund, Dedicated Schools Budget, Housing Revenue Account and earmarked reserves for 2021-22, based on forecasts as at 30^th September 2021;

2.    To note the reserves position of the Council is uncertain pending the closure of the statement of accounts for the period 2016 – 2021;

3.    To note the Council’s projected outturn position against General Fund and Housing Revenue Account capital programme approved budgets, based on forecasts as at 30th September 2021;

4.    To note that there are no equalities implications directly resulting from this report, as set out in Section 4 of the report.