Issue - meetings

Background:

This report gave details of the forecast outturn for the 2012/2013 financial year based on actual income and expenditure to September 2012 (the end of the second quarter).

It was noted that on 23 February 2012 the Council had set a General Fund net budget requirement of £180.998 million for 2012/2013, with Council Tax frozen at 2010/2011 levels.

This was the second quarterly report and it indicated, after management action, the outturn forecast for 2012/2013 stood at a potential overspend of £961,000, which compared to an equivalent forecast of £5 million this time last year and an improvement of £5,000 on quarter one.

Directorate management teams would continue to focus attention on identifying action to contain expenditure within the overall budgets.

The Cabinet accepted this report as urgent to enable it to receive and consider the first quarter budget monitoring information at the earliest opportunity.

Reasons:

Cabinet has the responsibility to ensure effective budgetary control to contain expenditure within the approved limits set by Council. Where a budget overspend is forecast, Cabinet supported by the corporate management team must identify measures to remove any excess expenditure.