Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Finance and Public Value, (DF/22/52) presenting the Revenue and Capital Outturn position for 2021/2022. The Report will follow.

RESOLVED

(a) that the draft outturn for 2021/22, after carry forwards and contributions to

and from balances, reserves and provisions, showing an overspend of £3.3

million against the approved revenue budget, be noted;

(b) that the 2021/22 revenue outturn, including transactions on earmarked

reserves and provisions, spending against budget, treatment of over and

under spending and the implications for balances, as set out in the tables and

the narrative of the Report, be approved;

(c) that any variances on final business rates outturns from the Districts be

taken to/(from) the Business Rates Risk Management Reserve and used to

offset the variances in the Collection Funds in future years;

(d) that the 2021/22 capital outturn including spending against budget and

proposed carry forwards, in accordance with the tables, be approved;

(e) that the use of capital finance, as set out in the Determination of Capital

Finance section 11 of the Report, be approved;

(f) that a total of £13.9 million is set aside from revenue resources as Minimum Revenue Provision (provision for credit liabilities to repay debt);

(g) that the Prudential Indicators, as set out in section 10 of the Rreport, be

noted; and

(h) that the total monies owing to the Council, as at 31st March 2022, also be

noted

(Councillors Adams, Bailey, Brazil and Whitton attended in accordance with Standing Order 25(2) and spoke to this item).

The Cabinet considered the Report of the Director of Finance and Public Value, (DF/22/52) presenting the Revenue and Capital Outturn position for 2021/2022.

The Cabinet noted that Members had received regular budget monitoring reports throughout 2021/22 in which budget pressures and risks had been identified. The outturn overspend of £3.3 million was an improvement from the £5.8 million forecast outturn which had been reported to Cabinet on the 9th March 2022. Cabinet further noted that the overspends related primarily to the budgets for Adult Care and Health and to Children’s Services, which sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the Report provided further detail.

There had however been other cost pressures of just over £4.5 million in terms of the pay award and lower than forecast income guarantee compensation grant for council tax and business rates, as set out in section 2.6 of the Report.

Almost £4 million of underspend on the Public Health Grant had been transferred to the ring-fenced Public Health Reserve. A transfer of £3.3 million from the Budget Management reserve would be required in order to meet the net overspend in 2021/22.

When the Council approved the 2021/22 budget in February 2021, it agreed to use £9.8 million of earmarked reserves to fund various one-off projects (economic recovery, Edge of Care, transformation and recruitment of social workers amongst others). Actual spending of £4.9 million was lower than forecast and had helped to offset the £3.3 million of earmarked reserves used to finance the overspend. Further detail was provided in the table on Earmarked Reserves in the Report.

The Dedicated Schools Grant Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Service continued to be under significant pressure which had resulted in an overspend of £37.5 million this year. There was a brought forward cumulative deficit of just under £49 million at the beginning of the year, therefore the cumulative deficit at 31st March 2022 was now £86.5 million. The deficit was explained in more detail in paragraph 5.2 of the Report.

At the time of writing the Report, the Council had received business rates outturn information from four of the eight districts which indicated the County Council’s share of local business rates income was £4 million lower than was notified at budget for 2021/22. However, compensatory grant income from central government was just under £4 million higher to compensate for the additional reliefs to local businesses.

Outturn would be updated when all eight returns had been received and confirmed.

Detailed explanations of the final financial position for each service area were highlighted in section 2 of the Report.

Section 3 of the Report outlined that the Better Care Fund had underspent this year and just over £9.7 million of the Improved Better Care Fund Grant was being carried forward into 2022/23.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak Government had continued to put in place a number of grant funding streams to help support  ...  view the full minutes text for item 172