Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Environment and Finance & Governance and the Director of Finance submitted a report for the Executive’s consideration. The purpose of the report was to advise the Executive of the Council’s financial position at Year-End 2020/21, including the effect of Covid-19 on the Council’s finances.

Information on the Council’s Revenue Budget Outturn 2020/21 was included at paragraphs 5 to 52 of the submitted report. The split by Directorate of the final year end revenue outturn position for 2020/21 was shown in the table below paragraph 8. The detail of the variances was set out in paragraphs 11 to 52. At year-end, 36 areas had spent +/- £150,000 of the agreed budget.

That when added to the Covid-19 pressures of £416,000, detailed in paragraphs 54 to 85 of the submitted report, resulted in a total revenue outturn pressure at year-end 2020/21 of £61,000. That was a reduction of £2.735m from the £2.796m total projected revenue outturn pressure reported at Quarter Three.

In terms of progress against budget savings, a total of £6.4m of budget savings for 2020/21 had been approved by Council on 26 February 2020 as part of the 2020/21 budget setting. It had not been possible to achieve a number of budget savings due to Covid-19 and those were detailed in paragraph 74 of the submitted report. There were a further £674,000 of budget savings (shown in the table below paragraph 53) which it would not be possible to achieve in 2020/21. Those had been accounted for in the year-end outturns for the directorates and formed part of the overall total year-end outturn for 2020/21.

Information on the Council’s Capital Budget Outturn 2020/21 was included at paragraphs 92 to 121 of the submitted report.

The split by Directorate was shown in the table below paragraph 99, which also showed the “real” projected outturn variance if all of the additional new schemes, increased schemes, reduced schemes, and transfers between directorates were excluded. Explanations for variances of +/- £150,000 across 14 schemes were set out in paragraphs 100 to 114 of the submitted report. Those variances required movement within the Council’s four-year Investment Strategy, but did not affect the overall investment or cost of borrowing.

Paragraphs 115 to 121 of the submitted report provided information on the Council’s borrowing and prudential indicators and paragraphs 122 to 124 contained information on the Council’s reserves.

ORDERED

1.      That the transfer to Reserves, as detailed in the report and summarised in paragraph 123 of the report, be approved.

2.      That the 2020/21 revenue budget final year-end outturn of a £355,000 (-0.3%) underspend on non-Covid-19 elements (subject to above approval of transfers to reserves), and the financial effect of Covid-19 in 2020/21 of £416,000 be noted.

3.      That the transfer of the £355,000 underspend on non-Covid-19 elements, to the General Fund Reserve, be approved.

4.      That the use of the General Fund Reserve, as approved by Council on 2 September 2020, to fund the £416,000 Covid-19 overspend in 2020/21, be noted.

5.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20