The Cabinet was informed of the financial position as at 31st July 2018 (Period 4) against Revenue and Capital budgets. The report also detailed a summary of the individual Cabinet Portfolio pressures and mitigations for the period of the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) 2018/19 to 2020/21 as well as all budget virements that had taken place up to Period 4 of this financial year.
In considering the report, Members attention was specifically drawn to the following:
· There was a forecast favourable variance for Core Council of (£0.413 million), and an adverse variance of £1.579 million for the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), to arrive at an overall adverse variance of £1.166 million.
· The Core Council revenue budget forecast included an adverse variance of £0.161 million for Children, Education and Skills portfolio, which was offset by a favourable variance of (£0.574 million) for the Resources and Delivering Value portfolio. The Adult Social Care and Health portfolio showed a net nil variance with the planned use of the contingency funding and for the portfolios which were linked to the Managed Growth and Communities Directorate, their combined variances forecasted a net nil position overall through the use of reserve funding.
· The Children, Education and Skills portfolio financial position was currently the subject of a detailed financial review, the outcome of which would be reported to Members of the Budget Strategy group as part of the 2019/20 budget process.
· The total Capital Programme budget was currently £46.253 million for 2018/19 (excluding the HRA capital programme). Actual expenditure to the end of July was £3.068 million. There was a forecast favourable variance of (£6.627 million) which was summarised by Cabinet Portfolio within the report itself in greater detail.
· The 2018/19 (Year 1) budget included savings of £6.703 million (after repayments was £2.606 million) in line with the current MTFS. The latest position showed that 71% were RAG rated as Green with 29% RAG rated as either Red or Amber, compared with the 2017/18 position this time last year of 76% and 24% respectively.
· The RAG delivery status at this point this year compared to this point last year was marginally worse for Year 1, but better for Years 2 and 3.
RESOLVED
(i) To note the current financial position; and
(ii) To approve the budget virements made up to Period 4 of 2018/19, as summarised in Appendix B to the report.