Agenda item

The attached report presents the financial monitoring information for the Authority as a whole for the financial year 2023/24, using information available as at the end of June 2023.

Cllr Mark Elliott introduced the report, moved the officer recommendation and made the following statement:

“Rather than being a backward-looking report, this one is giving the current, in-year position compared against this year's budget.  It's designed to give an early review of budget performance using the first two months of financial data.  This is to help us identify budget risks early.

I mentioned in previous reports the national Tory government's inability to get inflation under control, and UK Inflation (CPI) is still proving very stubborn - holding at around 8.7% - which is obviously affecting the cost of delivering Council services.

To cover the easy topic first, the 2023/24 Capital Programme is a forecast of £92.8m against a budget of £95.0m - so a small underspend. Whilst we want to see our capital programme proceeding according to plan, I don't think there is anything of serious concern here.

With regard to the Revenue Budget, the current forecast to the end of the year has identified above budget pressures of £3.96m.  For context that's against an overall revenue budget of just over £135m - so just shy of 3% over budget.  Whilst 3% might not sound like a lot, this is in the first two months of the financial year - there is absolutely no room for complacency and we, the whole cabinet, need to be working to bring this back in line as quickly as possible. 

The major part of the overage is down to the continuing pressure on Children’s services which makes up £3.3m of the forecast budget pressure.  This is a national problem being faced by all councils across the country - central government simply isn't providing enough funding into the system to cope with the constantly rising pressures in this area.

There are also workforce pressures across Council services which is creating a reliance on higher cost agency staff and we need to reduce that reliance as quickly as possible.

On the up side, we have seen good income performance across our corporate budgets and chargeable services that is helping to mitigate some of the rising costs in other areas.

I don't want to be too gloomy - identifying the issue this early in the financial year is a really good thing. I know the council's leadership team are now working on financial recovery plans to bring us back into budget, this will be reported back to Cabinet as part of our Quarter 2 monitoring.  I urge all cabinet colleagues to continue to work closely with their senior directors and other senior leaders over the coming couple of months to quickly identify, and then monitor, mitigation plans for your individual portfolios. Whilst we're seeing particular pressures in one portfolio, getting the budget back on track is something for us all to pull together to resolve.

I'll finish with thanks again to officers both in the finance dept and across the council. We have a great team and I'd like to thank them for their efforts in less-than-ideal financial conditions.”

Cllr Paul May seconded the motion and made the following statement:

“Thank you I wish to second this item and specifically address the children’s services pressures.

The previous council resources cabinet member made it clear we would be transparent re council budgets and monitoring, so it is essential to the public that we manage and show pressures where they exist at the earliest stage possible.

B&NES children’s services is respected and well run being rated as ‘Good’ across all services by Ofsted at our latest inspection confirmed by them recently in their annual assessment. The predicted overspend is in addition to additional support given in the approved Council budget for this year.

We deal with the most vulnerable children in our community and the work of our staff to support them and their families is something to admire.

The forecast is based upon the Conservative government allocating non-resident unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to local authorities. We welcome them, but the funding does not reflect their needs. Their status takes years to resolve by the Home Office, so as they become adults at the age of 18, our legal commitments then continue until the age of 25. We have no control over this system, and it creates officer and financial pressures at a time of increasing needs of local families following the pandemic. This is not just a local pressure and national discussions are taking place.

There are two other main drivers of this over-budget position. One is the demand-led placement and package budgets and the other is the increasing pressures from ongoing cost increase across Home to School Transport.

The service continues to look at all its costs and pressures to minimise long term these revenue increases, but I welcome the openness of our system to report things so early.”

RESOLVED (unanimously):

(1)  To note the 2023/24 revenue budget position (as at the end of June 2023).

(2)  To note the revenue virements listed for information in Appendix 3(i) of the report.

(3)  To note the capital year-end forecast detailed in paragraph 3.19 of the report.

(4)  To note the changes in the capital programme including capital schemes that have been agreed for full approval under delegation listed in Appendix 4(i) of the report.