Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services presented the provisional Revenue and Capital Outturn report for the 2023/24 financial year.

The General Fund provisional revenue outturn for 2023/24 was £199.568m after planned transfers to and from reserves.  An over-achievement in income of £2.482m meant that there was a £2.626m overspend at the year-end against the final revised budget of £194.46m.  The £2.626m overspend represented an improvement of £3.39m on the period 10 position and the Cabinet Member commended the efforts across the Council to minimise overspends which, at an early stage in the financial year, was projected at over £14m.  As a consequence of the overspend position, the General Fund Reserve at 1 April 2024 was £14.404m, above the Council’s minimum balance level of £12m.

The provisional Housing Revenue Account (HRA) outturn for 2023/24 showed a £6.06m overspend which would be managed through a reduced revenue contribution to the planned HRA capital reserve transfer within the base budget for 2024/25.  The provisional Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) outturn showed a £2.118m overspend, to be met from the DSG reserve leaving a closing balance of £7.955m.

The 2023/24 Capital Programme expenditure was £334.982m against the final budget of £340.387m and it was noted that the slippage would be carried forward to the 2024/25 Capital Programme.

The Cabinet Member commented that the Council had continued to face significant pressures during 2023/24, primarily due to the high level of inflation on costs and significant increases in demand for social care services.  Many of those challenges would continue into 2024/25 and whilst the Council had allocated over £8m from the Budget Support Reserve for 2024/25 to mitigate those known pressures, the point was made that without a fairer funding allocation from Central Government which reflected the levels of need, deprivation and population growth in the Borough, the Council would continue to face an extremely challenging financial position going forward.

The Cabinet Member also alluded to the achieved and unachieved savings proposals during 2023/24, bad debt provision following a review of recoverable and non-recoverable debt owed to the Council and the position relating to the Investment and Acquisition Strategy (IAS).

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note that the General Fund provisional outturn position for 2023/24 was £199.568m which, after a net transfer from reserves, represented an overspend of £2.626m against the revised budget of £194.460m, as detailed in section 2 of the report;

(ii)  Agree the transfer of £2.626m from the General Reserve to achieve a balanced outturn position for 2023/24;

(iii)  Note the Housing Revenue Account provisional outturn position for 2023/24 was an overspend of £6.060m which would be met from a reduced contribution to the HRA Capital Reserve, as detailed in section 4 of the report;

(iv)  Note that the Dedicated Schools Grant provisional outturn position for 2023/24 was an overspend of £2.118m which would be met from the DSG Reserve, as detailed in section 5 of the report;

(v)   Note the performance of the Investment and Acquisition Strategy (IAS) as set out in section 9 of the report;

(vi)  Note that the Capital Programme provisional outturn position for 2023/24 showed an underspend of £5.405m against a revised budget of £340.387m;

(vii)  Approve the carry forwards totalling £3.2m to the Capital Programme 2024/25, as detailed in section 11 and Appendices B and C to the report; increasing the capital budget for 2024/25 from £252.1m to £255.3m; and

(viii)  Note the update on the progress on the year-end accounts and the work still outstanding, as set out in section 12 of the report.