Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability introduced the report which provided details of the forecast outturn position against budgets set in March 2023, including the quarter two forecast to year end.

The Executive Member explained that a forecast overspend of £491,000 was not uncommon at this stage in the financial year and this figure would be significantly lower by the end of the financial year. He said there were specific issues outlined in Appendix B that caused some of the overspends.

Members were advised that the most significant issue was the forecast overspend of £371,000 in Planning and Building Control. The Executive Member said that this was due to low numbers of planning applications and staffing issues. The revised capital budget was set out in Appendix C and the age debt report was set out in Appendix D.

Councillor Deering said that this quarter 2 forecast report was very late to come through as a report. The Head of Strategic Finance and Property referred to the reporting cycle and said that the report had not been ready for the previous meeting. He said that the reports would come through more quickly going forward.

Councillor Nicholls asked if the level of debt at £1.69m reflected cost-of-living increases. The Executive Member said that a lot of this debt was quite old, and his understanding was that a lot was uncollectable.

N Sharman, Independent Person, asked if the irrecoverable debt impacted on the council’s cash flow assumptions going forward into the MTFP. The Executive Member said the provision on the debt was already at £1.9m and a lot of that debt had already been written off and the council was not expecting to collect it.

N Sharman asked if the forecast deficit meant that the deficit had to come out of reserves. The Executive Member said that it would the position tighter in respect of reserves and would make the council less resilient in terms of external financial shocks. Members received the report.

RESOLVED – that (A) the net revenue budget forecast overspend of £491k be noted; and

B)    the capital programme forecast outturn of £33.950m be noted.