Agenda item

Report attached.

The Cabinet considered a joint report of Councillor Noordad Aziz, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Transformation, Education and Skills, and Councillor Vanessa Alexander, Portfolio Holder for Resources and Council Operations, regarding the financial spending of the Council up to the end of September 2024 for the financial year 2024/25 and the forecast impact on the Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2024/25 to 2026/27.

Councillor Alexander provided a short verbal introduction to the report, including information about budgetary pressures and risks.  The Council was currently in a good financial position and was prepared for the risks identified.  She thanked the Executive Director (Resources) and the Finance Team for their hard work.

Councillor Whitehead reported that members had been to view the Civic Theatre, at Oswaldtwistle, and a public meeting had taken place to discuss its future, at which Councillors Khan and Allen had also been present.  The Council had been transparent about what progress had been made.  A Civic community group had formed comprising interested persons and they were due to attend the site next week.  A meeting had also been arranged with Theatres Trust in one week’s time to seek their advice.  The Trust was considering adding the Civic to their theatres at risk register.  Councillor Dad commented that the Council wanted to see the Borough’s vacant buildings brought back into use as soon as possible.

Councillor Khan thanked the Portfolio Holder for the risk information and the update on the Civic Theatre.   He noted that some underspends logged were due to staff vacancies, particularly in services such as Planning and Building Control.  He asked whether there would be negative financial consequences if the posts were filled.  Councillor Alexander responded that some posts had been filled temporarily by agency staff and that when permanent postholders were in place there should be no adverse financial implications.

Approval of the report was not considered to be a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

At the Full Council meeting on 27^th February 2024, Council had agreed the General Fund Revenue Budget for 2024/25.  This had set a budget for the Council’s total spend in 2024/25 of £16.122M.

The current forecast spend to the end of the financial year in March 2025 was £16.037M.  This brought the forecast underspend for the year against the budget to £0.085M.  Further analysis of changes in forecast spend were set out in section 4 of the report.

Table 1: Forecast Performance Against Budgets

The current forecast spend to the end of the financial year showed a reduction of £0.099M from the last report at QTR1.  Two further tables (Nos. 2 to 3) set out details of changes by service since the last report at QTR1 and the most significant changes in the forecast variance.

Section 4 of the report included additional tables (Nos 4 to 11) on Variance by Service, which provided more detailed information on the areas identified in Table 1 above.

Reserves

The Council was currently forecasting a reduction of £14.383M in its usable reserves during the year, bringing them to £11.721M at the end of the year.  Forecast movements in reserves were shown in Table 12 of the report.

The most significant movements in reserves were the forecast spending on the capital programme.

Potential Pressures and Risks in Year

Although the forecast underspend at Quarter 2 stood at £0.085M, there were some further pressures and risks that needed to be considered, some of which were not currently built into any financial forecasts.

The main pressures/risks to be considered related to the matters highlighted below:

• Waste Disposal Site/Transfer Station;
• Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre;
• Crematorium/Cremators;
• Food Waste Collections;
• Hyndburn Leisure;
• Housing Benefit Supported / Exempt Accommodation; and
• Pay Award.

A more comprehensive description of the above issues was set out in the report.

These pressures/risks would need to be considered over the course of the Medium-Term Financial Strategy along with an appropriate action plan to ensure the Council could meet any future predicted budget gaps.

There were no alternative options for consideration or reasons

Resolved                                 (1)   That the Cabinet notes the report and asks Corporate Management Team to continue to monitor the financial position of the Council over the remaining months of the year.

(2)   That Cabinet notes the pressures and risks highlighted in section 5 of the report and that regular updates will be provided on any potential impact on the current forecast underspend in year and the future Medium Term Financial Strategy.