Agenda item

This report presents the results of the third round of the Council’s revenue budget monitoring process for 2022/23. The Council’s summary position is presented at Table 1, with sections 4-8 providing the detail for each service area.

Discussion:

The Head of Revenue Accounts introduced the report which presented the results of the third round of revenue budget monitoring for 2022/23.

Members then raised a number of questions and comments, which included:

·      Use of agency staff – in response to a question about what the local authority was doing to reduce its reliance on non-permanent staff, which had a detrimental impact to the revenue budget, officers explained that in some areas, such as social care, recruitment issues were a challenge faced nationally but there were some local issues round comparative pay. Officers were currently working on a project which looked at 10% of posts within the organisation and included departments with high locum/agency costs, such as Legal and Planning Services. The project was benchmarking against private and public sector posts and developing a career progress framework which would help to attract and retain permanent staff. An update on this work was expected to be reported to the Employment Matters Committee around June 2023 and it was suggested this Committee should also have an opportunity to scrutinise proposals.

·      Pentagon Centre – reference was made to the £271,000 pressure and officers explained that pressures related to rising energy costs, new voids and the redevelopment of the first floor which required those units to remain closed.  Officers undertook to provide a more detailed breakdown of those costs to Committee Members. In relation to address the issue of void units on the ground floor, officers explained that the unit vacancy rate was low when compared to similar shopping centres and Ellandi (the shopping centre’s management company) was actively looking to encourage and support retailers to extend their tenancies and remain in the centre.

·      Commercial property transactions – in response to a question regarding the £404,000 underspend, officers confirmed that around £115,000 related to new property commercial rental payments and the remainder were one off costs including backdated payments.

·      Social Care saving targets – concern was raised about savings targets being placed on children and adult social care services which would be difficult to achieve in the context of high placement costs, capacity issues within the markets and the cost of living crisis. It was suggested that an investment strategy, focussing on local provision and facilities, would achieve a sustainable and financially viable service for the future.  Officers acknowledged the lack of capacity in the system and explained that the service was working to ensure that clients were reviewed timely to ensure they were not in placements longer than necessary and added that a working group was underway to look at housing solutions for vulnerable people to help address the large accommodation element of the financial pressures.

·      Use of reserves – officers clarified that the 2022/23 budget, as agreed in February 2022 was underpinned by £4.8m of reserves and based on the predicted overspend at quarter 3, the 2022/23 outturn would need to be funded by a further £12.3m from reserves.

·      Bus services savings – in response to a question about savings relating to bus services and how those savings had been achieved and whether there had been an impact on residents, officers believed this had been the subject of a previous briefing note request and undertook to chase up and circulate that briefing note.

·      Moving traffic offences – it was clarified this was a new power that Medway Council would be enforcing on going forward and so the budget on this would apply from 2023/24 onwards and added that the forecast revenue income that had been built in to the 2023/24 budget had been based on consultant expert modelling.

Decision:

1)         The Committee noted the results of the third round of revenue budget monitoring for 2022/23 and noted that on 7 February 2023, Cabinet instructed senior management to continue to exercise tight control to reduce expenditure within their areas and to identify a range of management actions in order to reduce expenditure or increase income.

2)         The Committee also requested that it receives an update on the ongoing work to reduce the use of non-permanent staff (locums/agency), in order to scrutinise this from a finance perspective.