Agenda item

Consideration was given to the report of the Chief Officer Resources.

The Leader advised the reports had been considered at the Joint Scrutiny Committee and asked the Chief Officer Resources to provide an update of discussions from the meeting.

The Chief Officer Resources outlined the report which updated the Executive on the provisional outturn against revenue budget for the financial year 2020/2021 across all portfolios. The Chief Officer noted the table which indicated that the provisional outturn was lower than the budget by £2.639m across all services. This was after an initial net contribution to specific reserves of £8.5m. It was added that in reviewing the year end position, and in support of the Council’s financial resilience, a further transfer to earmarked reserves of £1.2m had been made with the balance of £1.4m transferring to General reserves. The Chief Officer advised that due to the continued response and the recovery to be taken forward with regard to the pandemic additional reserves had been allocated.

The Chief Officer spoke to the report detailing the hardship funding the Authority had received from Welsh Government, Covid support payments made to schemes which had been administered by the Authority on behalf of Welsh Government and summarised the favourable and adverse variances across all portfolios.

The Chief Officer Resources pointed out the provisional outturn indicated that school balances increased to £3.7m with only one school currently in a deficit position and reported that schools had seen a similar impact on their budget as the Council during the pandemic and additional funding had been being provided by Welsh Government. This funding supported schools in their response to Covid-19, however, the Chief Officer added that this was a one-year benefit and did not answer the ongoing cost pressures the school and Council would face in ongoing years.

The Chief Officer Resources further spoke to the report and provided an overview of the Bridging the Gap Programme.

The Chief Officer Resources noted discussions at the Joint Budget Scrutiny Committee and advised that a request had been made by Members that future reports so Members could understand the impact of Welsh Government funding received against specific budgets. It was reported that at present the information was detailed against respective Portfolios, therefore this amendment to would be made going forward. The Chief Officer added that the Committee had agreed to recommend the preferred Option 1,

The Leader welcomed the report and outturn figure for the year which had been challenging across the public sector. The Leader felt that the Authority and other authorities had handled the situation very well and was pleased to report this position. 

The Leader added that over the last few years, building on the Council’s financial resilience was key for this administration and it was felt that this report positioned the Authority well to deal with any risks that may arise.

There were areas which need to be looked at and adverse variance addressed and the Leader reported that he was happy to take this forward with the respective Portfolio Holder and Chief Officer Resources. However, the was no major area of concern and there was mitigating circumstances for the adverse variances which was no reason for concern.

RESOLVED that the report be accepted and the appropriate challenge to the financial outcomes in the report was provided (Option 1).