Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services introduced the Council’s revenue budget monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year as of 31 October 2023 (period 7).

The Council’s General Fund revenue budget for 2023/24 was £199.002m and the forecast outturn position at the end of October projected a net overspend of £11.605m after transfers to and from reserves, which represented an improvement of £1.047m on the position at period 6.  The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) was showing a projected overspend of £7.08m for 2023/24, which was unchanged from period 6. 

The Cabinet Member reiterated the issues that were impacting on the in-year position for the General Fund, such as continuing demand pressures and increasing social care costs, as well as the effect that the projected overspend would have on reserves and the Council’s ability to set a balanced budget for 2024/25.  The report also set out the key organisation risks and key assumptions made within the organisational forecast and the Cabinet Member stressed the need for portfolio holders and senior management to continue to make every effort to reduce the overspend position by the year-end. 

The Cabinet Member also advised on a recent review of various non-ringfenced reserves which had identified the capacity to move some allocations within those reserves to the main Budget Support Reserve.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the projected £11.605m revenue overspend forecast at Period 7 for the General Fund for the 2023/24 financial year, as set out in sections 2 and 3 and Appendix A of the report, and the net projected year-end drawdown of £4.888m to support the in-year position, as shown in Table 1 of the report;

(ii)  Note the projected £7.08m revenue overspend forecast for the Housing Revenue Account, as set out in section 4 and Appendix A of the report;

(iii)  Note the projected returns for the Investment and Acquisition Strategy as set out in section 5 and Appendix A of the report;

(iv)  Approve a virement of £10,733,468 from the Enforcement Service budget to the Public Realm budget to reflect the transfer of the Parking service to Public Realm during period 7; and

(v)  Approve the re-appropriation of reserves of £3.684m to the Budget Support Reserve from other non-ringfenced reserves, as detailed in section 6 of the report.