Issue - meetings

Report of the Chief Executive to follow.

Cllr Pauline Church, Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement, Commissioning, IT, Digital and Commercialisation introduced the report which (i) advised Members of the provisional outturn position for financial year 2020/21 (31 March 2021) for revenue with the necessary approvals as appropriate; and (ii) provided an update on the financial impact on the Council of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and details on Government support.

The Cabinet received questions from Susan McGill in relation to this report. Cllr Clewer explained that the questions had received responses, which were available to read in the agenda supplement 2 on the Council’s website here.

Cllr Church reported that the £13.571m set aside in two new earmarked reserves, one for Latent Demand and a Collection Fund Volatility reserve as well as £4.165m in the Budget Equalisation Reserve approved as part of the quarter two (Q2) budget monitoring report, would mitigate risk and known pressures that will arise in future years and balance the budget for 2021/22 financial year. It was noted that the approvals have effectively reset the budgets for services by transferring all the variances, the overspends and underspends, and putting the net position into the Latent Demand reserve.

The report set out the variances in the financial performance from Q3 to the Q4 position. The overall financial variances for the financial year were detailed in Appendix A.

Cabinet noted that after receiving £32m of emergency funding from the Government to support the Council in managing the response to COVID-19, an estimated £6.4m from Government to offset income losses as a result of lockdown interventions, additional furlough grant claimed and the revision of the timing of latent demand, the Q4 outturn position has again improved. The provisional Q4 position shows an additional underspend of £16.246m following the requests approved as part of the Q2 and Q3 budget monitoring reports, which will see the Council underspend by £33.982m for the financial year 2020/21.

Cllr Church explained that a significant proportion of the one-off funding will be required to meet a range of costs and pressures, some of which maybe recurring, in the following financial year. Therefore, the report set out proposals to set aside these funds to ensure the financial sustainability and resilience of the Council to continue to deliver services over the medium term. Concern was expressed specifically about the Dedicated Schools Grant and in particular overspends on the High Needs Block, which was driven from parents and schools for support for vulnerable children and SEN & disability. 

Cllr Pip Ridout, Chair of the Financial Planning Task Group, reported that the next Task Group meeting was set for 25 June 2021 and she would be able to report further on the Task Group comments on this at a future meeting of the Cabinet. Cllr Ridout reminded the Cabinet that the provisional outturn represented a moment in time, and that the Council were still in the midst of a pandemic and its impacts on the Council budgets.       

Cllr Ian Thorn, Leader of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7