Issue - meetings
Quarter 1 Budget Monitoring Report
Meeting: 16/07/2018 - Cabinet (Item 10)
10 Quarter 1 Budget Monitoring Report - Revenue 
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Minutes:
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Councillor Janette Williamson, Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources said:
“The Council set a balanced, sustainable and fair budget in March 2018, despite significant government cuts and increasing demand for costly, specialist children’s social care services. No additional funding from government has been forthcoming to support this national crisis. Setting the budget for 2018/19 under such difficult circumstances was tough but we continued to protect those services most important to our most vulnerable and target our resources to the areas that matters most to our communities.
Already during Quarter 1 we are feeling the extent of our reduced funding with pressures already mounting in some areas as demand continues to rise. We have a robust programme of recovery with intervention and demand management taking shape to ensure we can mitigate pressures in year.
At the end of Quarter 1 we are forecasting an overspend of 0.2% of the net budget. This is early and while cautious it is prudent to ensure we forecast a realistic representation, I am confident that the plans and restrictions we have in place will once again enable us to deliver a balanced budget for the coming year.” |
Councillor Janette Williamson introduced a report that set out the projected revenue position for 2018/19 as at the end of Quarter 1 (30 June 2018).
Councillor Williamson informed that the forecast outturn position as at the end of Quarter 1 was a potential overspend of £0.617m. It was anticipated that mitigating savings could be identified to offset the potential overspend, however, as these were yet to be formalised, it was prudent to report an overspend position.
The Cabinet noted that since the 2018/19 budget was agreed in March 2018, several areas of significant pressure had been identified across the Council as a result of increasing demand and there was a robust mitigation programme in place to ensure these pressures did not materialise.
The report provided an update on the achievement of savings proposals for 2018/19, some of which were currently not being realised. However, areas to offset these via other means were being explored so that the total savings target could be met by the end of the year.
In addition to formal Quarterly reporting to the Cabinet, the budget position was reported monthly at Directorate Management Team meetings and to the Strategic Leadership Team. This approach ensured any early warning highlighting pressures could be collectively resolved.
The Cabinet noted that the outcome of the quarterly monitoring and any medium to long term effects were being fed into the Medium Term Finance Strategy to ensure the impact could be assessed against the council’s future financial sustainability.
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This was a key decision which affected all Wards within the Borough.
The report had been provided for monitoring purposes but Members noted that any options to improve revenue budget monitoring and accuracy would be considered.
Councillor Williamson outlined the Council’s financial performance and thanked all of the Finance Officers, who had worked around the clock, for their hard ... view the full minutes text for item 10