Issue - meetings

This report presents the forecast revenue outturn position for the current financial year 2023/24, as at Quarter 3, covering the period 01/04/2023 to 31/12/2023.

The Committee received a report presenting the forecast revenue outturn position for the current financial year 2023/24, as at Quarter 3, covering the period 01/04/2023 to 31/12/2023.

The following matters were considered:

a)            Council Reserves. A Member of the Committee asked how many years it would be sustainable for the Council to transfer from reserves to manage the budget deficit.  The Head of Finance responded to explain that there's a lot of uncertainty ahead, in terms of central government and demand pressures on Council services, and at the moment around £500,000 a year is being used from our reserves. The Head of Finance continued to explain that the Council’s General fund reserve balance is around £3million and £1.5million uncommitted in our Corporate Projects reserve. The Head of Finance explained that the Council cannot continue until those reserves are exhausted and needs to address its budget deficit as soon as possible, so it retains financial resilience to deal with the unforeseen.

b)            Property Dividend reduction. A Member of the Committee asked if the property mentioned in paragraph 6.1 on page 135, is the property the Council is planning to move to with the Town Hall Relocation and highlighted the large reduction in dividend income from £1.3million to £700,000. The Head of Finance responded to inform the Committee that it is a different property mentioned in paragraph 3.6, and the 23/24 and budget would have been set in in February 2023, with the work going into that happening in late 2022 based on the existing leases that were in place at the properties. The Head of Finance continued to explain that in the spring of 2023, a rent-free period had to be agreed with one of the property tenants in order to retain them in the property and that reduced the dividend income temporarily for a period of two years, the lease is due to revert back to full rent in April 2025 and that was agreed by the Strategy and Resources Committee in in March 2023, therefore, the lease adjustment happened after the budget was set.

Following consideration, the Committee unanimously resolved to:

(1)      Receive the revenue budget monitoring report, which sets-out a projected deficit of £146,000 for 2023/24;

(2)      Note that specific reports have been taken to Licensing & Planning Policy Committee (November 2023) and Community & Wellbeing Committee (October 2023) to address the most significant adverse budget variances;

(3)      Note that the final outturn position will be reported to Strategy & Resources in July 2024, then to this committee alongside the Statement of Accounts in autumn.