Report of the City Treasurer attached

The Executive considered a report of the City Treasurer, which set out the final outturn position for the Council’s revenue budget in 2023/24.  It also highlighted the movements from the previous forecast for the year, which was reported to the Executive in February 2024.

The Executive Member for Finance and resources reported that reported that the final outturn position was an overspend of £5.35m for the year. This was in the context of significant financial stresses being faced across the Local Government sector. The Council’s position reflected the national pressures in the health and social care sector and trends being experienced across most Social Care providing local authorities.

I was noted that the increase was largely made up of emerging pressures in both Adults and Children’s services which were set out in the report, offset by improvements in other Directorates.  The budget process for 2023/24 identified £25.2m of savings. Of these £18.1m (72%) had been achieved or mitigated and £7.1m (28%) had not been achieved, mainly due to the increased costs and demand pressures of £3.0m on Children Service placements and £4.1m in Adults from demand management. As part of the 2024/25 budget-setting process officers had identified alternative savings where original plans might not be achieved, and an additional £10m had been allocated to support Adults and Children’s.

In terms of virement approval requests, a budget virement of £0.6m from centrally held contingency to Election Services to fund pressures from the electoral reforms required under the new Elections Act was recommended for approval.

Since the last monitoring report to the Executive there hade been additional grant notifications which wre now reflected in the revised budget as follows:

·            Children’s Services – £28k grant for the Early Years Experts and Mentor Programme from the Early Years Professional Development Programme (EYPDP) to support delivery of the programme.

·            Corporate Services – £141k New Burdens Grant from Dept of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for electoral integrity programme to support additional legal requirements of facilitating elections as set out in the Elections Act 2022.

·            Growth and Development – £84k from Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to fund specialist commercial and legal advice for project delivery in Holt Town, along with a further £150k from Homes England and £132k from GMCA’s Growth Locations Funding for neighbourhood development and regeneration.

·            Corporate Services – £0.514m in 2024/25 and £0.514m in 2025/26 from Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for the Net Zero Accelerator Programme to be used to build on the feasibility study work carried out in 2023 to facilitate the council-wide ambition to understand how to develop pipeline projects and associated finances for net-zero transition.

·            Corporate Services – £6.5m Household Support Fund (HSF) in 2024/25.  Announced in the 2024 Spring Budget statement.  This extension of funding would allow the Council to continue to support vulnerable residents.

The following requests relate to drawdowns from reserves, above that approved in budget:-

·            Neighbourhoods –  £124k from the New Smithfield Market Reserve to contribute to asbestos remediation works at the market site as part of the commercial redevelopment plan.

·            Adult Social Care Reserves – £1.035m including bringing forward £0.500m planned for drawdown in 2024/25 and the release of £0.535m held for potential fire safety works in supported accommodation, which if required would be funded through existing capital budgets, both mitigating the 2023/24 outturn position.

·            In addition, further mitigation of £0.718m released from the Integration Reserve with the agreement of the MLCO to support the Adult’s position.

In line with the budget approved in February 2024 the General Fund reserve would be increased by £3.5m in 2024/25, bringing the balance to £23.4m. The Council’s reserves strategy recommended that the General Fund was maintained in the region of c£20 to c£25m. This was the level deemed adequate to mitigate for unforeseen budget risks.

Councillor Leech sought clarification as to when work on investment for those children with higher levels of needs would be complete in order to reduce some of the pressures on the external residential care budgets.  The Chief Executive clarified that whilst this work would commence this financial year, it would need to be ongoing  and form part of the 2025/26 budget considerations as whilst investment in prevention and early help had helped, there still existed a national finding crisis for children’s services.

Decisions

The Executive:-

(1)      Note the 2023/24 outturn position reporting a £5.3m overspend for the year.

(2)      Approve the proposed budget virements as set out in the report

(3)      Approve the proposed use of revenue grant funding as set out in the report

(4)      Approve the use of reserve funding as set out in the report

(5)      Note the adjustment to provisions as set out in the report.