Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Performance and Core Services presented a report on the Council’s revenue budget monitoring position for the 2018/19 financial year as at 31 July 2018 (Month 4).

The General Fund showed a projected year-end overspend of £4.924m against the budget of £145.368m, which represented potential overspends of circa £11.5m offset by central underspends and contingencies of circa £6.5m.  The main areas of overspend related to the Children’s Care and Support, Disabilities Care and Support and Adults Care and Support services, primarily due to the ongoing demand pressures, high-cost care packages for an increasing number of clients and increasing pay costs.  The Cabinet Member also commented on a lack of funding opportunities brought about by successive Government policies affecting the most vulnerable in the local community.

The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) was forecast to be £0.9m below the planned revenue surplus contribution to the HRA Capital Programme.

The Cabinet Member also referred to the proposed allocation of Strategic Investment Pot (SIP) funding generated via the London Business Rates Pool, as well as proposed virements between budgets in respect of the Members’ Allowances Scheme for 2018/19, increased costs being borne by Community Solutions relating to temporary accommodation for the homeless and the reallocation of cleaning budgets to a single budget managed corporately by My Place.

The Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the current forecast outturn position for 2018/19 of the Council’s General Fund revenue budget as detailed in section 2 and Appendix A of the report;

(ii)  Note the current forecast outturn position for the Housing Revenue Account for 2018/19;

(iii)  Approve the proposed allocation of the London-wide Strategic Investment Pot to the individual projects listed in paragraph 5.8 of the report and that the SIP Panel be encouraged to allocate any additional funding that may become available to the ‘Local London: Investment in Fibre’ project, which would serve Barking and Dagenham; and

(iv)  Approve the virements as detailed in paragraph 6 and Appendix D of the report.