Apologies had been received from Councillors Nembhard and Martins.  There was a change of membership for this meeting: Councillor Allen-Williamson replaced Councillor Walford.

There were no disclosures of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 6 January 2024 to be submitted and signed.

The minutes of the meeting of Finance Scrutiny Committee held on 10 January 2024 were signed.

The Chief Finance Officer (CFO) delivered her report to the committee. 

The officer highlighted three key areas of her report:

·        An increase in the forecast for temporary accommodation from just over £0.500m, was now estimated to be £0.800m.  This was due to increased cost of accommodation rather than increased demand.

·        A reduction in commercial income as rent reviews had not provided the budgeted increases.

·        An additional profit distribution from the joint venture, Riverwell, which had offset the increased costs and it was now forecast that the general fund would return to its original £2.000m risk assessed level by the end of the financial year. 

The Chair thanked the Chief Finance Officer and invited questions from the committee.  There were no questions, so the Chair asked if there was any projection on the cost for temporary housing. 

The CFO explained that it was difficult to forecast costs for temporary housing, as there were lots of variables.  Work was being done to understand how the increased costs in 2023/24 would impact on the forecast for 2024/25.  This would be examined in more detail at the next Finance Scrutiny Committee meeting. 

In response to a question as to whether there was any positivity in the forecast, the CFO stated that there had been a continuation of the Household Support Fund.  Whilst this did not support the council’s budget, it could benefit residents. 

The government had increased the guarantee from 3% to 4%, which was only £0.032m for this council.  The CFO went on to explain the government had agreed the additional funding on the condition that councils produced productivity plans.  This was not supposed to be burdensome, as the required data was already being produced.  But the simple fact was, that as a council, we would have to continue to manage with very tight resources. 

In response to a question as to whether we had sufficient data to produce the productivity plans, the CFO explained that currently we did not know the detailed requirements, but enormous amounts of data were already collected by central government. 

It was stressed that the council already collected a significant amount of data internally to ensure control of our processes and measure the effectiveness of our services.

There were no further questions.

RESOLVED –

1.         that the Financial Monitoring Report 2023/24 – Period 10 be noted, together with the revenue and capital forecasts for 2023/24.

2.         that there are no recommendations to Cabinet or Council.