Agenda item

This report presents the results of the first round of the Council’s revenue budget monitoring process for 2020/21. Section 3 sets out the overall position, while Sections 4-7 and appendices 1-3 provide full details.

The report also presents a summary of debts written off during the 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20 financial years.

Discussion:

The Committee considered a report on the first round of the Council’s revenue budget monitoring process for 2020/21.

The Committee discussed the following:

• Provisional settlement date: The Committee was advised that the one-year settlement would not be announced until the last two weeks of November 2020.

• The Government Compensation Scheme to cover income shortfall: The Committee was advised of the eligibility criteria for this scheme.

• Sport, leisure, tourism and heritage: Concern was expressed that Full Council was not informed about redundances when taking a decision on £5m expenditure on Splashes. It was explained that the decision to approve the funding for a capital scheme was separate from any decision to consider the realignment of teams. Officers would reflect on how Members could be best informed of the different processes.

• Deangate golf course: Concern was expressed about the additional funding allocated to the golf course for survey work and it was explained that this was as a result of the delay caused by Covid-19  which had caused additional costs to be incurred.

• The flexible retirement of the Chief Executive: It was clarified that the Chief Executive was continuing in the Council’s employment but had reduced his hours, moving to a four-day working week.

• Housing Revenue Account (HRA) surplus: Members were advised that the HRA was always budgeted to generate a surplus. Funds were put into reserves to support the service during any years when a surplus was not achieved or to fund larger schemes. Officers would clarify what the surplus was driven from and advise the Member.

• Medway Commercial Group income pressure: It was confirmed that this was due to a reduction in CCTV.

• Highways: Clarification was sought on the income pressure for Medway Tunnel given that the Committee had been advised during the previous item of an unexpected income from the pothole fund, part of which had been allocated to the tunnel. The Committee was advised that the capital budget was for major long-term maintenance works whereas the revenue budget was for operational maintenance on a day to day basis. Previously a pressure on the capital budget had been forecast but Government funding for those works had been received. On the revenue budget there remained a pressure because more needed to be spent on operational maintenance than had been budgeted for.

• Household waste sites: Clarification was sought on the deficit in respect of waste management, given that household waste sites had been closed for a number of months which would have generated savings in waste removal from the sites. It was explained that during lockdown, kerbside waste tonnages had increased significantly with some collection rounds experiencing an increase of up to 40%. The disposal cost of this additional tonnage had put pressure on the budget.

• Adult Social Care: Praise was given to staff working in domiciliary care during the Covid-19 pandemic. Details of any performance deep dive were sought and the possibility of a virement into adult social care was raised. It was explained that, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the cost of placing people leaving hospital into social care had increased significantly. The provider market was struggling to meet demand and was incurring additional cost. In response to this, the Business Change and Finance teams were focusing their efforts on Children and Adults. They were mapping out core processes; working with social workers on programmes of review of individual placements and working with partnership commissioning colleagues to ensure that people’s needs were met in a cost effective way and the Council was not being charged for services that were not required. In terms of virements, the Council had been as flexible as possible with its grant structure.

• Vacancies in Adult Social Care and any measures being taken to encourage people to retrain: Members were advised that a lot of vacancies had been highlighted in round 1 monitoring which might in part be due to the adjustment needed to recruit and train new members of staff in a remote environment. Colleagues in HR and Adult Education were seeking to maximise use of the Government’s Kick Start scheme which granted work placements for young people whose job prospects had been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Comparison unitary data on corporate debt write-off: Officers undertook to respond to the Member outside of the meeting.

Decision:

The Committee noted:

a)      the results of the first round of revenue budget monitoring for 2020/21; and

b)      that on 25 August 2020 the Cabinet noted the proposal for the Chief Executive to pursue a reduced working week and flexible retirement, as set out in paragraph 6.2.3.

(In accordance with Council Rule 12.6, Councillors Khan, Maple and Murray asked that their votes in favour be recorded.)