The Director of Finance will submit a report (Document “Q”) which provides Members with an update on the forecast year-end financial position of the Council for 2021-22.

It examines the latest spend against revenue and capital budgets and the forecast year-end financial position based on information at Qtr 2. It states the Council’s current balances and reserves and school balances. 

Recommended –

That the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Committee review and comment on the Qtr 2 Finance Position Statement for 2021-22.

(Andrew Cross - 07870 386523)

Resolved –

Members of the Committee thanked officers for the report and looked forward to receiving the Third Quarter Financial Position Statement.

                                                                        (Andrew Cross – 07870 386523)

The Director of Finance presented a report (Document “Q”) which provided Members with an update on the forecast year-end financial position of the Council for 2021-22.

Document “Q” examined the latest spend against revenue and capital budgets and the forecast year-end financial position based on information at Quarter 2. It stated the Council’s current balances and reserves and school balances. 

Following a very detailed presentation Members raised a number of questions to which the following responses were provided:

·         The departmental commentary on recruitment to Children’s Social Care included some internal promotions within the number of new posts but was broken down into two separate figures to reflect the natural turnover in that service. 

·         Significant pressure in the Department of Place had arisen in the Waste Management Service and mitigating factors were included in the report.  It was more difficult to comment on services such as Sport and Culture as those services were more reliant on income generation.  That income was relied upon to balance base budgets but had been significantly impacted by COVID.  People were beginning to return to sports centres and theatres but there was still some hesitancy because of the pandemic.  An initiative to generate additional income by the Museums Service had also been delayed. 

·         The Council’s Strategic Risk Register, appended to the report, was reviewed to assess risk after mitigating action had been identified.  It was acknowledged that some legacy risk remained high and it was agreed that discussions would be held with the Council’s Risk Manager to ascertain if that was an error in the report.

·         A major deficit in income from business rates was not expected as this had been offset by government relief through Covid funding.  There would be a concern if businesses did not recover from the pandemic and ceased to trade in the future.

Officers were thanked for the report and Members looked forward to receipt of the third quarter information.