Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability introduced the report which gave an overview of the expected outturn at the year-end based on current expectations. He said that a revenue forecast at the end of Quarter 2 was provided in Appendix A, but had been superseded by the forecast at the end of Quarter 3, which was in Appendix B.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that the overall overspend was now expected to be £955,000. He said that this was made up of an overspend on services of just over £2 million, plus savings in interest payments and investment income of £561,000, and a reduction in reserves contributions of £486,000 making up most of the balance.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability referred Members to Appendix C of the report which detailed a list of key variances in the cost of services. He said that BEAM made up almost 75% of the total differences.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that the change in accounting policy (to allow the capitalisation of interest during the build phase of major construction projects) had resulted in a reduction of interest payments in the expenditure account of £340,000. He said that updates to the capital spending programme were provided in Appendix D, with key changes being the reprofiling into 25/26 of the reduced budget for Refuse and Recycling vehicles and containers, which was now anticipated in Quarter 1 of 2025/26.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability referred to paragraph 2.7 of the report which outlined the work being done to tackle outstanding debt. He said that debt aged over 180 days stood at £2.27 million, with a few key accounts responsible for at least half of this.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that the mitigations being considered for the overspend were discussed at paragraphs 2.8 – 2.11 of the report.

The Chair thanked the Executive Member for Financial Sustainability for the report.

Councillor Deering referred to the council’s debt, saying that this was significant and old, and asked what was being done to address this, and how procedures would be improved to avoid debt occurring in the first place.

The Executive Member for Financial Sustainability said that the detail of the debt was being looked at. He said that key accounts had been identified for around half of the total debt, but there were delicate issues surrounding some of these. He said that a dedicated team was now in place to deal with debt, but this was an ongoing project which would take time and would prioritise large debts first. He added that transformation, in the shape of automated payments, would help. 

The Interim Head of Strategic Finance said that direct debit collection would be used for the garden waste charge, and that this could be extended to other services to enable payments upfront or when due, and flag problems more quickly. 

Councillor Deering asked how long the debt team had been in place and when it was constituted.

The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 338