The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer will follow (and is now published).

A report was submitted to provide a summary of the position of the 2019/20 revenue budget as at the end of August 2019. 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 August 2019 it was forecast that by the year-end in March 2020 the revenue budget would be overspent by £6.027m, a worsening of the position predicted in July (Minute Exe/19/63). The report explained that the projected further overspend had mainly arisen from service pressures on the adult social care budgets.

Proposed Virements

The report proposed two funding virements, both of which were large enough to require the approval of the Council.

(1) A virement of £175k in 2019/20 and £0.698m in future years (of which £486k is permanent and £212k time limited). Increases in parking, bus lane enforcement and residents' parking activity has led to an increase in the number of penalty charges notices issued by the Council. The virement was to fund additional operational, technical and managerial resources and enable the delivery of a service improvement and transformation programme.

(2) A virement to reduce both the Transport Levy budget by £1.333m, from £38.157m to £36.824m, and Grants and Contributions budget from £1.618m to £285k. Funding sources within the GMCA Transport budget had changed. In February 2019 it had been agreed that the Transport Levy would increase by £8.3m, which would be off-set by grants from the GM Mayor. Of the £8.3m, £6.84m could now be retained within the Mayoral General Fund which would necessitate a reduction per district in the remaining Transport levy payable, which would be off-set by not receiving Mayoral grants to the same amount.

Budgets to be Allocated

When setting the 2019/20 budget the Council has agreed to hold some funds for contingencies, and other money that was to be allocated throughout the year. The report proposed the use of some of these budgets to be allocated. These were agreed:

(1) Release of £125k for a data governance restructure to enable a succession plan and allow the service to respond to increasing demand and structure the service so it is more aligned to current council directorates. This would also support an additional apprenticeship post.

(2) Release of £334k for an initiative to deliver a more attractive offer to foster carers, an effective marketing campaign, develop skills within the in-house fostering service and plan for conversion of external foster carers to internal foster carers.

(3) Release of £400k for Home to School Transport for cumulative increases in inflation for insurance premium, requirements to reduce vehicle emissions by 2020/21 and changes in the national minimum wage since the last tender of contracts for Home to School Transport.

(4) Release of £254k to cover the increase in the average weekly cost of foster care placements by 7%, from £3,642 per week to £3,910 per week, an increase of £268: £207 of this weekly increase is to be met from demography funding and the service request the remaining £61 per week is funded from inflation for the budgeted placements.

Use of Reserves

The report also addressed use of the Council’s reserves. Four draw-downs from reserves had been requested. All were approved.

(1) Manchester Arena security measures - £197k from the on-street parking reserve for semi-permanent concrete planters to be placed along Hunts Bank and the entire length of the central reservation of New Bridge Street. Movable barriers will be located at four locations on New Bridge Street. These will replace temporary traffic management measures which are currently deployed to prevent through traffic on the southern side of New Bridge Street for the period immediately after an event to support the high numbers of pedestrians exiting the venue.

(2) CCTV Operating system upgrade - £200k from the on-street parking reserve to procure and implement a replacement Public Space CCTV Operating System. £250k was approved in the 2019/20 budget, bringing the total CCTV project revenue costs to £450k.

(3) Liquid Logic Social Care system implementation costs of £0.7m, a drawdown from Capital Fund Reserve to fund the additional costs of the internal and external resources needed to support the system in going live including providing further training and other implementation costs; this will involve retaining the project team until later in the year to support business change activities linked to the new system.

(4) Carers support - £0.615m from the Our Manchester reserve to support Carers strategy for a two-year period together with funding from the external Greater Manchester Transformation Fund of £0.528m. A contract was to be awarded for a two-year period and partners would review the impact to determine the investment priority on a longer term basis.

Use of Additional Grants

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 2019/20 budget setting process. Approval was given to the use of these funds.

(1) £59k from the Department of Business, Energy and Industry Strategy for the Feasibility Study for a heat network at Manchester Science Park (MSP) to be used to procure an external technical consultant to undertake a techno-economic feasibility study into the potential renewable and low carbon heat network to serve MSP.

(2) £400k from the Home Office for Violent Crime Reduction Programme (in partnership with Greater Manchester Combined Authority) to allow the Community Safety Partnership to undertake activity which will contribute towards meeting its strategic objectives.

(3) £2k from the Department of Business, Energy and Industry Strategy for Greater Manchester SME Zero Carbon Accelerator – Phase 1 to establish a standardised, replicable mechanism for supporting Greater Manchester SMEs to develop, aggregate, fund, deliver and monitor the performance of projects to become zero carbon. MCC’s role within the project is management of the consortium and the overall project.

(4) £71k from the European Commission for Zero Carbon Cities for a second phase programme to bring networks of European cities together to develop solutions to shared urban challenges.

(5) £413k of funding from Central Government to prepare local authorities for leaving the EU by appointing a designated Brexit lead, enhancing local resilience and supporting air, land and sea port development to meet additional challenges.

Decisions

1.         To recommend that the Council approve the proposed virements over £0.5m in paragraph as set out above.

2.         To note the Global Revenue Budget Monitoring Report.

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

4.         To approve the use of reserves as set out above.

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