The report of the City Treasurer is now enclosed.

A report was submitted to provide a summary of the position of the 2018/19 revenue budget at the end of October 2018. The report gave details of the projected variances to budgets, the position of the Housing Revenue Account, Council Tax and business rate collection, revised prudential borrowing indicators, and the state of the Council’s contingency funds. Projecting forward from the position at the end of October 2018 it was forecast that by the year-end in March 2019 the revenue budget would be overspent by £3.947m, which was better than the previous projection of an £6.145m overspend as reported in October (Minute Exe/18/94). The report described the continuing measures being used to reduce the size of the projected overspend.

The report also addressed use of the Council reserves and recommended that the Council approve the release of a total of £6.292m from reserves. The proposals were:

·         £40K from the City Centre Review – for the Compliance and Enforcement and Homelessness teams to improve data and performance indicators;

·         £2.6m from the Better Care Fund Reserve - as part of an overall funding strategy for 2019/20 to provide ongoing contributions for social care and to enable the CCG to access its historic surplus in 2019/20;

·         £1.4m from the Adult Social Care Reserve – also as part of an overall funding strategy for 2019/20 to provide ongoing contributions for social care and to enable the CCG to access its historic surplus in 2019/20;

·         £1.595m from the Adult Social Care Reserve - for reform staffing, mental health related strength based assessment and supporting the shared lives scheme;

·         £175k from the Parking Reserve - to fund hostile vehicle mitigation measures;

·         £482k from the Asylum Seekers Reserve – to fund the Local Authority Asylum Support Officer (LAASLO) project, subject to agreement from the contributing authorities.

The following budget virements were proposed and agreed for the revised budget for 2018/19:

·         £2.957m - Transfer funding for Our Manchester voluntary and community sector budgets from Adults and Neighbourhoods to Policy, Partnership, Research and Culture;

·         £0.619m - Facilities Management Centralisation - Security, Pest Control, Cleaning and Planned Preventative Maintenance budgets have been centralised;

·         £0.294m - Transfer of the funding for the resource team staff from the Shared Service area to HR/OD.

When setting the 2018/19 budget the Council has agreed to hold some funds that were to be allocated throughout the year. The report proposed the use of some of these budgets to be allocated. These were agreed:

·         Our Children’s Budgets (Looked After Children) – £1m for external placements made up of:

o    External Fostering – having to make 44 external fostering placements at above the North West Framework price;

o    External Fostering - the cost the new North West framework being higher than anticipated, with the agencies involved increasing their prices; and

o    External Residential –to cover the 6% inflationary increase together with the increase in the number of residential placements.

·         Waste management inflation allocation £137k - waste management contract to cover pay, fuel and disposal increases from the Inflationary Provision 2018/19.

·         Coroners Inflation allocation £248k - Mortuary Contract cost inflation;

·         Highways Pay Inflation £38k – additional consultancy expertise to deliver the complex highway programme;

·         Capital Programmes Pay Inflation £87k – extra cost of recruiting the number of skilled professionals needed to deliver the programme.

The report also explained that notification had been received in relation to specific external grants, the use of which had not confirmed as part of the 2018/19 budget setting process. Approval was given to the use of these funds:

·         Department of Work and Pensions Universal Credit, New Burdens grant to Adult Services - £305k. Supporting Manchester citizens with applying for and managing Universal Credit benefits.

·         Digital Social Care Demonstrators (DSCD) - Health to Adult Social Care - £100k. to reduce Delayed Transfers of Care (DTOCs) at Manchester Foundation Trust, the numbers of bed days where a patient is medically fit for discharge but awaiting a social care assessment or care plan;

·         New Burdens Grant - Leaving Care - £52k to provide support in response to young people that may request support from the local authority after the age of 21 and up to their 25th birthday.

·         Area Based Collaborative Entrepreneurship in Cities to Corporate Core - £107k to develop better policy approaches to promote collaborative entrepreneurship;

·         New Burdens grant to Homelessness - £509k over two years to fund a Floating Support Service Team who would work with households who can be moved on into the private rented sector.

Decisions

1.         To note the report.

2.         To recommend that the Council approves the use of £6.292m in total from the City Centre Review, Better Care Funding, Adult Social Care and Parking reserves, as set out above.

3.         To approve the proposed budget virements as set out above.

4.         To approve the use of budgets to be allocated as set out above.

5.         To approve the use of grants in addition to that already planned, as set out above.