Agenda item

Xon JaColleen Warren, Financial Services Manager:

a)    presented a report to Performance Scrutiny Committee the first quarter’s performance (up to 30^th June) and to seek approval for changes to the capital programmes

b)    provided information on the Council’s:

·         General Fund Revenue Account – for 2022/23 the Council’s net General Fund Revenue Budget was set at £8,907,490, including a planned contribution from balances of £60,700, resulting in an estimated level of general balances at the year-end of £2,731,299. Appendix A provided a forecast General Fund Summary. There were a significant number of provisional year-end variations in income and expenditure against the approved budget. Full details of the main variances were provided in Appendix B.

·         Housing Revenue Account – for 2022/23 the Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) net revenue budget was set at a £38,670 use of balances, resulting in an estimated level of general balances at the year-end of £1,063,872, after allowing for the 2021/22 outturn position. The HRA was currently predicting a forecast overspend of £161,365. Appendix C provided a forecast Housing Revenue Account Summary. There were a number of forecast year-end variations in income and expenditure against the approved budget. Full details of the main variances were provided in Appendix D.

·         Housing Repairs Service – at quarter 1 the Housing Repairs Service (HRS) forecast a deficit of £550,765 in 2022/23. Appendix E provided a forecast summary, with full details of the main variances provided in Appendix F.

c)    provided information in the following areas:

·         General Investment Programme – the original General Investment Programme (GIP) for 2022/23 in the MTFS 2022-27 amounted to £19.407m which was increased to £30.913m following quarter 4 approvals and year end re-profiles from 2021/22. At quarter 1 the programme had been increased by £1.429m to £32.342m as shown in paragraph 7.2 of the report.

The overall spending on the General Investment Programme for the first quarter of 2022/23 was £1.68m, which was 2.65% of the 2022/23 active programme (excluding externally delivered schemes). This was detailed in Appendix l.

·         Housing Investment Programme – the original Housing Investment Programme (HIP) for 2022/23 in the MTFS 2022-27 amounted to £21.72m. This was increased to £23.17m following approvals and year end re-profiles as part of the 2021/22 outturn. This had been further adjusted to £23.25m during the first quarter of 2022/23. A summary of the changes was shown in paragraph 7.8 of the report.

d)    invited members’ comments and questions.

Question: Members asked what the financial impact would be if money that had been borrowed got re-profiled.

Response: Work was being carried with financial advisers Link to see if there are any savings to be made with the money that had been borrowed. Markets are looked at daily to make sure that we are getting the best deal when it comes to borrowing that we possibly could.

Question: Members asked if there were a lot of variables that were being released from central government and when this would be brought back to Performance Scrutiny Committee.

Response: Quarterly financial reports are given to Performance Scrutiny Committee and the next report was due to come to the committee in November.

Members of Performance Scrutiny Committee had thanked the Finance Team for all of their work.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.