Agenda item

Budget monitoring report is a key tool in scrutinising the Council’s financial performance. It is designed to provide an overview to all relevant stakeholders. It is essential that the council monitors its budgets throughout the year to ensure that it is meeting its strategic objectives and that corrective action is taken where necessary.

This report seeks approval to a change in the Council’s 2021 - 2024 medium-term revenue financial plan. The report shows the Council’s overall consolidated medium term financial plan for both revenue and capital.

The Budget Monitoring report was a key tool in scrutinising the Council’s financial performance. It is designed to provide an overview to all relevant stakeholders. It is essential that the council monitors its budgets throughout the year to ensure that it is meeting its strategic objectives and that corrective action is taken where necessary.

This report sought approval to a change in the Council’s 2021 - 2024 medium-term revenue financial plan. The report shows the Council’s overall consolidated medium term financial plan for both revenue and capital.

The Shared Director of Finance said the key variation we were seeing in this budget was the Leisure Management contract income which as a result of Covid we were forecasting we will not meet the budget this year.  A full report had been provided to Members on this but were assuming that some of the losses will funded by the Government.

A Member asked about planning applications as it stated that there had been a reduction in income but they thought the department was very busy.  The Shared Director of Finance advised there had been an increased volume in planning applications but because they were householder applications rather than from developers there was less income coming from them.

The Director of Community and Environmental Services advised that the planning department was the busiest it had been however there had not been the major applications received recently which generated the largest fees.  Also because of the move towards permitted development we are getting lots of applications for Certificate of Lawfulness and pre applications for Permitted Development so there are no fees or very limited fees attached to those.  The department are still seeing the same volume of work with the same amount of paperwork to be done.  We are expecting some major applications in the next quarter which may make up the difference but we can’t guarantee they will come through.

The Member asked how much Government support had been received. The Shared Director of Finance advised that the figures quoted in point 1.6 were for the first quarter however this included money that was previously provided for the whole year as part of our funding against expenditure for the first quarter.  The impact last year was much greater and we had to use £1.8m of our Economic impact reserves.

A Member referred to staff vacancies and asked how that compared with other local authorities and how are we doing in terms of advertising the vacancies and uptake.  On the property investment we had a 5% yield target and asked were we managing to hit that target. 

The Shared Director of Finance said in terms of vacancies we are getting a high response but not necessarily the right candidates were applying.  In Finance the vacancies have been inundated with applications but it was very hard to get the right people with the experience required.  The Customer Service Centre had also been struggling to fill vacancies.  The Council had to recently increase the HGV Driver salaries to fill vacancies but it may start to improve now as we come out of Covid.  The yields show the actual rents received compared to the cost of the properties and a breakdown on each yield for each property was provided in the report.

A Member said that 11 of the staff vacancies stated not currently being advertised and asked if that was because we were not proposing to fill them or how are we going to fill them.  The Shared Director of Finance advised there would always be a review of that vacancy to see how we wanted to fill it and whether an existing member of staff act up into the role or we could appoint internally.

A Members noticed that the report referred to a decrease in income at Watersmeet due to the reduced number of shows but wasn’t this partly offset by a reduction in expenditure and the two grants received from the Government.  The report does not say the grant had offset this.  The Shared Director of Finance said the grants were received in the last financial year and in no way replaced the income we would have received if Watersmeet had been open.  The Director of Community and Environmental Services said some of the grant received had to be used for measures to make the venue Covid safe.

Councillor Chris Lloyd moved, seconded by Councillor Sarah Nelmes, the recommendation as set out in the report.

On being put to the Committee the motion was declared CARRIED by the Chair the voting being 8 For, 0 Against and 3 Abstentions.

RECOMMEND:

That the revenue and capital budget variations as shown in the table at paragraph 6.1 be approved and incorporated into the three-year medium-term financial plan