The Senior Finance Business Partner introduced a report on behalf of the Director of Resources which highlighted the processes for monitoring the 2021/22 budget and for commencing the budget setting process as agreed by the Policy and Resources Committee on 17 March 2021. The report included further supporting information to ensure that these processes could be followed.

The Ministry for Housing, Local Government and Communities had provided a conditional offer of exceptional financial support (capitalisation directive) for 2021/22 of up to £10.7m. 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.

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)  it be agreed to include the current proposals with this report from the Medium Term Financial Plan from 2022/23 – 2025/26 and the Director of Regeneration and Place be authorised to develop them into full business cases, where appropriate, for inclusion 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; and

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