Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services introduced the Council’s revenue budget monitoring report for the 2022/23 financial year as at 31 January 2023 (period 10) and the quarter 3 Capital Programme update.

The Council’s General Fund revenue budget for 2022/23 was £183.06m and the forecast outturn position at the end of January projected a net overspend of £10.44m once movements to and from reserves, income and an increase in corporate funding had been taken into account.  That represented an improvement of circa £1.3m compared to the previous month.  The Cabinet Member reiterated the key factors behind the General Fund overspend, the vast majority of which were entirely outside the Council’s control, and he confirmed that the Council had received no additional funding from the Government to mitigate those unforeseen costs.  The Housing Revenue Account was also projecting an overspend of £3.422m due to inflationary pressures and also an enhanced programme of compliance and safety works to the Council’s housing stock.

With regard to the Capital Programme for 2022/23, the Cabinet Member advised on several proposals that would increase the overall programme from the current level of £452.6m to £464.9m.  It was also noted that the forecast capital spend at the year-end was £391.9m due to delays on a number of projects and that the slippage of £73m would be reprofiled into future years.

The report also set out details of several proposed permanent and/or temporary virements between revenue budgets to support services in managing their budgets.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the projected revenue outturn forecast for the 2022/23 financial year as set out in section 2 and Appendix A of the report;

(ii)  Approve the revenue budget changes (virements) as detailed in Appendix D to the report; and

(iii)  Approve a net increase of £12.3m to the 2022/23 Capital Programme, resulting in a revised Capital Programme for 2022/23 of £464.9m, made up of £374.29m for the Investment and Acquisition Strategy, £57.276m for General Fund, £2.354m for Transformation and £30.983m for the Housing programme, as detailed in section 5 and Appendices B and C to the report.