Issue - meetings

Background:

This report presented the results of the third round of the Council’s revenue budget monitoring process for 2023/24. The report set out that at its meeting on 23 February 2023, Full Council had set a total budget requirement of £388.269million for 2023/24. Since then additional grant funding had been announced,primarily the Household Support Fund, Holiday Activity Fund, Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (Workforce Fund) and Start 4 Life funding, plus the final allocations for Schools funding and the Public Health Grant had been confirmed. The net impact of these amendments took the Round 3 budget requirement to a total of £390.667million. 

The forecast outturn for 2023/24 represented a pressure of £11.359million, an improvement of £892,000 compared to the position reported at Round 2.

It was noted that the Council’s revenue budget situation was challenging and that this was the case for councils across the country. It was also considered that budgets under the previous administration had not been sustainable.

Reasons:

Full Council is responsible for agreeing a balanced budget in advance of each financial year. Cabinet is responsible for ensuring that income and expenditure remain within the approved budget, including instructing corrective action to prevent any forecast overspend from materialising.

The transfer of reserves from earmarked to general reserves will enable an overspend of the size projected in this report to be funded from general reserves if it materialises.