Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendations.

Councillor Johnson introduced the report which provided Members with the revenue budget final outturn position for the Council Fund and Housing Revenue Account for the financial year 2022/23 (subject to audit).

The Accounts for 2022/23 were now effectively closed, and the Council was on schedule to submit the formal Statement of Accounts and supporting notes to Audit Wales within the timeframe set by Welsh Government (WG).

As reported previously, measures were introduced to review and challenge non-essential spend and recruitment to vacancies with the aim of reducing in-year

expenditure to ‘dampen’ the projected overspend at that time. That work had made a positive impact on the outturn position.

The final year end position was:

Council Fund

·         An operating surplus of (£3.013m) which was a favourable movement of

(£0.907m) from the last reported figure of (£2.106m) as at Month 11.

·         A projected contingency reserve available balance as at 31st March 2023 of £9.508m.

The Council Fund final outturn surplus position of (£3.013m) did not include

various one-off items of expenditure totalling £5.876m approved for funding from

the Contingency Reserve such as the Pay Award of £3.826m, COVID related

costs of £1.573m and Social Services one off costs within Children’s Services of

£0.477m. If those amounts had been taken from the in-year revenue budget, there

would have been an overall net overspend of £2.863m for the financial year.

The operating surplus of (£3.013m) equated to 0.9% of the Approved Budget, which was above the target MTFS KPI for a variance against budget of 0.5%

Housing Revenue Account

·         Net in-year revenue expenditure was £2.688m higher than budget.

·         A closing balance as at 31st March, 2023 of £3.786m.

The Corporate Finance Manager explained that, since completion of the report, the accounts had been formally submitted to Audit Wales and would be reported to Governance and Audit Committee the following week.

            Unearmarked reserves would be looked into over the summer and any that were no longer required would be moved into the contingency reserve.

The Democratic Services Manager explained that the report had been considered at Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee the previous week where questions were asked on waste infraction charges, the cost of the Local Development Plan and the Central Loans and Investment Account.  The Committee congratulated the Revenues Manager and his team on achieving a 97.4% collection rate for Council Tax.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the overall report and the Council Fund contingency sum as at 31^st March 2023 (subject to audit) be noted;

(b)       That the final level of balances on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) (subject to audit) be noted; and

(c)        That the carry forward of funding be approved.