Decision details

The Executive will be asked to consider the regular budget monitoring reports any changed proposals to relevant action plans change in use of budgets additional budget expenditure and the Councils in year financial performance

Received a report from the Corporate Director of Resources providing an update on the Council’s revenue and capital position for the period April to August of the 2009/10 financial year.

The current forecast for revenue expenditure across the Council has identified that all departments are projecting in-year pressures amounting to £4m (Adults and Community Services £1m, Children’s Services £1.1m, Customer Services £0.8m and Resources £1.1 m).  The most significant areas of pressures relate to expenditure on transition arrangements within the Adult Services Learning Disability, transport services for children with Special Educational Needs (SEN), Looked after Children Placements and in meeting the Council’s Leaving Care responsibilities, the Barking and Dagenham Direct service and income generation.

A recovery plan has been compiled with a view to eliminating these projected overspends and, following consideration by the Corporate Management Team, the agreed actions will be reported back to the Executive. 

Agreed, in order to assist the Council to achieve all of its Community Priorities and as a matter of good financial practice, to:

(i)  Note the current position of the Council’s revenue and capital budget as at 31 August 2009;

(ii)  Note the position for the Housing Revenue Account;

(iii)  The use of contingency budget to fund the pressures within the Resources department as set out in the report;

(iv)  The virement within the Resources department’s budget to increase Employees and Supplies budgets by £300,000 and £100,000 respectively and increase the Income budget by £400,000; and,

(v)  A budget adjustment of £250,000 from the set aside IT reserve to fund the systems development work within the Finance service.