Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services presented the provisional Revenue and Capital Outturn report for the 2022/23 financial year.

The General Fund provisional revenue outturn for the financial year was £194.079m against the budget of £180.944m.  Once other factors had been taken into account, the overall position represented an overspend of £25.509m.  The primary reasons for the variance were inherent service-driven overspends of circa £8.1m across the Council, as well as year-end adjustments relating to bad debt provision and the Council’s subsidiary company, Barking and Dagenham Trading Partnership Limited. 

The Cabinet Member explained that the last 12 months had probably been the most challenging that the Council had faced in the past 10 years.  He commented that whilst the term ‘overspend’ was technically correct in describing the situation the Council found itself in, it was merely a reflection of the significant underfunding from Central Government who had failed to implement Fair Funding reforms that would reflect the substantial population growth in the Borough, the level of deprivation and the high demand for social care services, which was compounded by a number of other councils indiscriminately placing high-needs families in Barking and Dagenham.

In order to cover the deficit position, the Cabinet Member referred to the various reserve funds that had been used and other proposed transfers to and from reserves for the 2022/23 financial year.

In respect of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and education-related expenditure via the Dedicated School Grant (DSG) budget, the Cabinet Member advised on provisional in-year overspends of £2.4m and £0.592m respectively, which would be met from the specific reserves for those areas. 

The 2022/23 Capital Programme showed a provisional outturn of £360.4m against the adjusted budget of £468.8m and the Cabinet Member confirmed the intention to carry forward the slippage into the 2023/24 programme.  Whilst he acknowledged that a level of slippage would inevitably occur in such an ambitious programme, he took on board comments regarding the importance of setting a realistic and deliverable annual programme. 

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note that the General Fund provisional outturn position for 2022/23 was £194.079m, which represented an overspend of £25.509m once movements to and from reserves, income and an increase in corporate funding had been taken into account, as detailed in Appendix A to the report;

(ii)  Agree the transfers from corporate reserves to mitigate the 2022/23 overspend, as detailed in Appendix A to the report;

(iii)  Note that the Housing Revenue Account provisional outturn position for 2022/23 showed an overspend of £2.405m which shall be met from the HRA Reserve, as detailed in Appendix A to the report;

(iv)  Note that the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) budget provisional outturn position for 2022/23 showed an overspend of £0.592m which shall be met from the DSG Reserve, as detailed in Appendix A to the report;

(v)  Note that the Capital Programme provisional outturn position for 2022/23 showed an underspend of £92.09m against the revised budget of £467.868m and approve the carry forwards to 2023/24, as detailed in Appendices B and C to the report; and

(vi)  Note the update on progress on the year-end accounts and the work still outstanding, as set out in section 5 of the report.