Issue - meetings

Report of Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets, Councillor Peter Jeffries

RESOLVED THAT:

-       the contents of the report, including the key projected variances to the general fund and Housing Revenue Account (“HRA”) 2025/26 revenue and capital budgets approved by Council on 21 February 2025, and the actions to ensure overspends are reduced as far as possible by the end of the financial year, are noted. 

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets apologised for the late report, which he said shows how the council’s finances stand at the end of November, and give a clear picture of where it is on track and where it is starting to see some pressures. At this stage, we are forecasting overspend of  £564k by the end of the financial year, largely due to lower-than-expected income in a few areas, but there are some positives as well.  Overall, this means we need to keep close eye on spending over next few months; if the position doesn’t improve, we will call on reserves to balance the budget which would take the general balances below the level we want to hold. He added that some savings agreed for this year are also proving hard to deliver, and are being actively reviewed.

He said there is volatility and uncertainty in areas of the national economy even after the recent government budget announcements, and equally the pending local government reorganisation is having negative effect on resources and capacity; there is no  government funding for this, and the impact organisationally is unavoidable and unforeseen.

He ended by thanking the finance and leadership teams for their hard work throughout the year.

A Member thanked the Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets for the report. He said it is disappointing that there will be an overspend and the council will be using reserves by the end of the year, but the report is open, explains what is going on and, he suggested, reserves exist to be spent  when things don’t go the way the financial strategy intended.  This is good jurisprudence, and CBC is in a strong position despite all that is going on.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Assets welcomed these comments and pointed out that this is a Quarter 2 overspend; he hoped not to be in the same position at the end of the year.  A lot of work is going on in the background with the teams, making savings and adjustments as we move forward; he agreed that this is what reserves are there for but said there is not optimum level of reserves and he hoped that we don’t have to use them. He concluded that budgets have been challenging over the last few years the council and finance team is doing all it can to keep everything on track. 

The Leader added that it is important to remember that this is not the year-end report, and that it highlights the importance of budget monitoring reports to ensure a constant handle on CBC’s finances at any moment in time.

RESOLVED THAT:

-       the contents of the report, including the key projected variances to the general fund and Housing Revenue Account (“HRA”) 2025/26 revenue and capital budgets approved by Council on 21 February 2025, and the actions to ensure overspends are reduced as far as possible by the end of the financial year, are noted.