The Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive advised Members that the purpose of the report was to:
Ø Inform Full Cabinet of the financial position as at 30th September 2018 (Period 6) against Revenue and Capital budgets and the latest Red, Amber, Green (RAG) ratings for the delivery of the current Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) savings 2018/19 to 2020/21. Detailed in Appendix A;
Ø Inform Full Cabinet with a summary of the individual Cabinet portfolio holder pressures and mitigations for the period of the current MTFS 2018/19 to 2020/21 with headlines for any key emerging pressures and proposed mitigations. Detailed in Appendix C;
Ø Provide a summary of the reports to the individual Cabinet portfolio meetings during November 2018;
Ø Provide details of the inter-cabinet budget virements which had taken place up to Period 6 of this financial year, as required by Financial Regulations and the revised budget resulting from those virements, which Members were asked to approve. Detailed in Appendix B; and
Ø Seek approval to delegate responsibility to the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health in conjunction with the Director for Adult Care and Support to determine the allocation of the £0.870 million one-off grant funding within the portfolio for 2018/19 as detailed in paragraphs 3.8-3.9 of the report.
The Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive advised Members that in relation to the revenue budget – forecast out-turn position there was an adverse variance for the Core Council of £0.127m, and an adverse variance of £1.464m for the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), which resulted in an overall adverse variance of £1.591m. Given the adverse variance position further work would be undertaken to mitigate the situation.
The Director advised that the Government had just announced that the Council would receive an additional one-off funding of £870,000 for the Adult Social Care and Health portfolio to meet winter pressure costs for the current financial year (2018/19). The full terms and conditions for this funding had not yet been received, however the information currently available indicated that the expectation was that this would be used to deliver additional care capacity in reablement, homecare and / or residential care in order to support timely hospital discharges. Officers were currently looking at opportunities to maximise the use of this one-off funding without creating recurrent pressures.
With regard to the Capital Budget the total Capital Programme budget was currently £49.285 million for 2018/19 (excluding the HRA capital programme). Actual expenditure to the end of September was £9.701 million. There was a forecast favourable variance of (£6.7 million) which was summarised by Cabinet Portfolio in Appendix A (Table 3). There were no red risks to report.
The report detailed the progress made with the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) Rag status of savings 2018/19 to 2020/21. The overall RAG delivery status compared to the same point last year was less positive for year 1 but better overall for years 2 and 3.
On receiving the report Members commented that although there was an adverse variance at this point, they felt the situation was manageable.
The Cabinet Portfolio for Children, Education and Skills commented that the position with regard to the DSG was down to the increased number of referrals for pupils with high levels of need, that out of Borough placements were expensive and the Council’s special schools were full. Work was ongoing to try and reduce the number of out of Borough placements, and a bid for a specialist autistic school had been made. Discussions with Head teachers to make provision for pupils with increased needs were also taking place.
RESOLVED:
(i) That the current financial position be noted and that the current actions to address the budget variances be endorsed;
(ii) That the budget virements made up to Period 6 of 2018/19 summarised in Appendix B be approved; and
(iii) That delegated responsibility be approved to the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health in conjunction with the Director for Adult Care and Support to determine the allocation of the £0.870 million one-off grant funding within the portfolio for 2018/19 as outlined in paragraphs 3.8-3.9. of the report.