Issue - meetings

The committee received a report of the Section Head – Financial Planning and Analysis. The Head of Finance introduced the report. This was the first monitoring report of 2021/22 covering the period up to the end of June. The key areas highlighted were:

·        The latest budget was £13.957 million including the carry forwards which had now been added.

·        The forecast outturn was £14.444 million which gave an unfavourable variance of £0.487 million.

·        The additional support to the leisure operator and the loss of the management fee remained consistent with the update in June.

·        It was expected that the council would be able to recover some lost income from the government’s income guarantee scheme, but guidance on this had not yet been issued.  The claim for 2020/21 had been paid at a higher level than the amount accrued.

·        There was an underspend of £23 million in the capital programme due to rephasing of projects.

·        The reserves were in a strong position but were currently overinflated by the £19.38 million collection fund. This amount would be repaid to the government and would be recovered through the collection fund.  

·        The spend to date was at 43%, rather than the expected level of around 25%, this could be explained by the timing differences between paying out grants and receiving the income from government.

·        Commercial income, business rates and council tax income were all performing well.

·        Data on debtors remained promising as a substantial amount of the outstanding debt had been received just outside the reporting period.

Responding to a question about the capital projects, the committee was reassured that capital programmes often saw slippage with the investments happening at a later stage than originally anticipated.

The committee noted the significant variance under community and environment, this was substantially due to the loss of income and additional support for the leisure operator. It was hoped that the funding could be recovered over the life of the contract or through the income guarantee scheme.

The Portfolio Holder observed the large proportion of the council’s income which came from commercial rent which was holding up well despite the circumstances.

RESOLVED –

that the committee notes the 2021/22 Finance Digest including the revenue and capital forecast outturn positions.