Decision details

Following consideration of the officer report, appendices and discussion, the Executive resolved to:

a) Note Council is now forecasting a balanced revenue position (on-budget).

b) Note the total Council revenue forecast underspend of £20.065m for the year. There is a forecast underspend of £14.005m within Service Directorates for 2024/25 and the Corporate Contingency of £6.000m, whilst remains unallocated it has been released into the forecast outturn within budget lines Table 1.

c) Note that the planned use of reserves of £36.800m for Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) Support towards the budget is forecast to reduce by £20.065m to £16.735m, due to the forecast underspend within budget lines (paragraph 18).

d) Agree that mitigating actions are to be identified in order to reduce any overspends, to take action and to contribute to the long-term financial sustainability of the authority.

e) Agree that the Council continues with the aim of avoiding a Section 114 notice by taking all of the necessary actions and continues to operate in a similar way to one being issued.

f) Note the progress and delivered savings of £32.217m of the approved savings programme as set out in Table 2 and Appendix J.

g) Note that work will continue to find mitigating or substitute savings for the £3.909m of Red unachievable savings, deliver the £0.727m Amber at risk savings and the £3.379m Green on track savings.

h) Note the in-year forecast overspend on the Dedicated Schools Grant of £31.300m, a decrease of £1.467m from Month 7 (paragraph 11).

i) Note the total forecast Dedicated Schools Grant year-end deficit of £65.211m as set out in Appendix C.

j) Note the collection rates for Council Tax and Business Rates as set out in paragraph 16.

k) Note the quarterly update from the Spend Control Board detailed in Appendix K.

l) Note the quarterly update on the prudential indicators detailed in Appendix L.

m) Note the outstanding debt position as detailed in Chart 3 and Appendix M.

n) Note the level of General Reserves is £60.000m (risk-based assessment – minimum £30m, maximum £60m) and repurpose of some specified earmarked reserves following a review of the Council’s balance sheet (see section 19).

o) Note the Capital Programme forecast outturn at Quarter 3 is £150.573m.

p) Approve the additional Quarter 2 capital slippage of £0.631m into future years

q) Approve £247.062m of additions to the capital programme, as detailed in Section 35 of this report.