Graham Hodkinson, Director of Care and Health, introduced the report of the Director of Resources which outlined the processes for monitoring the 2021/22 budget and for commencing the budget setting process for 2022/23.

It was reported that following the capitalisation directive of up to £10.7m the Council had received from Ministry for Housing, Local Government and Communities, one of the conditions of that offer was that the Council needed to provide evidence from the assurance review of the authority’s financial position and its ability to meet any or all of the identified budget gap without any additional borrowing. Therefore, it was important that the Council had robust processes in place to manage and monitor the in-year financial position, to ensure it is reporting a forecast balanced position to the end of the year and that the process for 2022/23 budget setting was underway early so that an agreed budget could be agreed by Council in March 2022.

A query was raised around the effectiveness of zero-based budgeting, where it was outlined that Adult Social Care and Public Health had undertaken a zero-based budgeting exercise the previous financial year, which meant that the budget for the current financial year was based on that zero-based budgeting exercise and therefore accurately reflected actual spend.

Resolved – That

1)  the content of the report and the current forecast position of savings for 2021/22 and the ongoing work being undertaken to mitigate any under achievement be noted.

2)  agreement be given to the inclusion of the current proposals within the report from the Medium Term Financial Plan from 2022/23 – 2025/26 and that the Director of Adult Care and Health develops them into full business cases, where appropriate, be included in the 2022/23 budget proposals to Policy and Resources Committee at its October meeting for approval.

3)  a series of budget workshops be convened to identify any alternative savings/income/reductions in pressures to ensure that a full suite of costed and deliverable proposals can be recommended to the Policy and Resources Committee at its October meeting for approval.

4)  the Zero-Based Budgeting project be commenced within the budget workshops to contribute to the overall savings target of £170k in 2021/22.