Issue - meetings

That the Committee supports the recommendations made in the Cabinet report for 22 January on the Revenue Budget Monitoring 2018/19 (Month 8) and confirms that there are no concerns which it wishes to have raised at Cabinet this month.

The Corporate Finance Manager presented a report on the revenue budget monitoring position for the Council Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) as at Month 8 prior to consideration by Cabinet on 18 December 2018.  The report reflected the budget position at the close of the financial year if all things remained unchanged.

The Council Fund was broadly on target with an operating surplus of £0.026m which was a positive movement of £0.351m compared with the previous month.  The main changes related to the Council’s allocation of £0.611m one-off grant from the Welsh Government (WG) Support Sustainable Social Services funding during 2018/19 to be used for the purposes set out in paragraph 1.04.  Increased costs in Streetscene & Transportation were due to the need for additional school transport.

On planned in-year efficiencies, 97% or £5.326m were projected to be achieved.

On teachers’ pay, confirmation had been received on the 2018/19 funding contribution of £0.784m to be passported in full to schools once received.  Whilst this broadly covered the increased costs for 2018/19, the Final Settlement did not change the previous position which allowed the Council to provide a 1% uplift in the base funding of schools, meaning that schools would need to share the impact of costs for 2019/20.

The projected year-end balance on Contingency Reserves was £7.689m, however after using £1.900m to close the budget gap as agreed as part of Stage 1 budget solutions, the total available balance would be £5.789m.

On the HRA, a projected underspend of £0.067m would leave a closing balance of £1.165m, which was 3.4% of total spend.

Councillor Jones referred to the projected overspend on Out of County Placements which would have increased further without the allocation of WG grant funding.  In response to queries, clarification was given on the strict criteria which applied to the grant funding and the need to show alignment to those priorities.

Councillor Heesom asked about the size and capacity of unearmarked reserves and whether they could be used towards the budget gap if they were not needed.  In response, attention was drawn to the latest report to Cabinet detailing the current position on unearmarked reserves and the opinion of the Corporate Finance Manager, as the statutory S151 Officer, on their use.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee supports the recommendations made in the Cabinet report for 22 January on the Revenue Budget Monitoring 2018/19 (Month 8) and confirms that there are no concerns which it wishes to have raised at Cabinet this month.