The report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer is enclosed.

The Council’s revenue budget outturn for 2019/20 was presented. The Council had overspent the revised 2019/20 budget by £0.527m. That was a much improved position compared to the forecast of a £2.790m overspend which had been the position in the last of the 2019/20 Revenue Budget Monitoring Reports (Minute Exe/20/10). That was mainly due to an improved position in Children’s Services spending.

The overall outturn position had been:

The report explained that on 19 March 2020 the Government had announced a total of £1.6bn of new funding for local government to help it respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the services provided by councils. The council’s allocation of that total had been £18.589m. Of that, some £389k of expenditure had been incurred in 2019/20, covering:

·         £322k in ICT to enable staff to work from home;

·         £54k Facilities Management for additional cleaning equipment and materials; and

·         £13k Adults Social Care for personal protective equipment.

The remaining allocated of £18.2m was available in 2020/21. On 18 April 2020 the Government had announced a second allocation of £1.6bn to local authorities, with the council’s allocation being a further £15.167m.

The report explained the 2019/20 financial performance in each of the council’s directorates and main service delivery functions, showing how overall spending and income compared to budget, and whether planned-for savings had been achieved during the year. The most significant underspends and overspends were outlined in each case. The large overspending in Children’s and Adult’s Services had been mitigated by understands in the corporate budgets and Neighbourhood Services, as seen in Table 1 above.

The report also addressed some end of year adjustments to the budgets and reserves from 2019/20, including the announcements of some additional grant funding.

Budgets to be Allocated

In setting the 2019/20 budget in February 2019 it had been agreed that some budgets were to be held back for future allocation. These remaining uses of the unallocated funds from 2019/20 were therefore proposed and agreed:

·         £0.586m from contingency funds to offset the price increases on placements of fostered children;

·         £476k from budgets to be allocated and £81k from contingency funds to Homecare help reduce the demand for hospital beds; and

·         £91k from contingency for inflationary increases on the Street Lighting PFI.

Use of and Transfer to Reserves

The report requested that approval be given for the use of £16k in 2019/20 and £86k in 2020/21 from the Transformational Challenge award reserve to support the Adult Social Care’s strength-based development programme which involved working alongside residents to identify the support and resources available from relatives, carers and from within the local community. That request was approved.

The report also recommended a number of transfers of funds into reserves, all of which were supported:

·         £340k unspent from the Private Rented Sector Access Fund;

·         £108k carry forward of 2019/20 Rough Sleeper Initiative and Rapid Rehousing Funding;

·         £0.672m of unspent Discretionary Housing Payments to a reserve for use against future pressures in this service;

·         £0.815m of unspent Winter Pressures Grant transferred to the Adults Social Care Reserve; and

·         a further £1.003m of unutilised Adult Social Care Grant to the Adults Social Care Reserve.

Grants in Addition to that Already Planned

The report explained that notifications had been received in relation to specific external grants. These allocations had not confirmed at the time of the 2019/20 and 2020/21 budget setting processes, confirmation of them was now being sought. These were all supported:

·         Engaging libraries Phase 2 - £10k in 2019/20 and £15k in 2020/21 to employ a project manager and to fund workshops to help Multilingual Manchester research language diversity in the city

·         Unlocking clean energy in Greater Manchester - £164k in 2020/21, £104k in 2021/22, and £106k in 2022/23 to increase small scale renewable energy generation in Greater Manchester;

·         European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) - Research and Intelligence Biohealth Accelerator - £101k in 2020/21, £71k in 2021/22 and £72k in 2022/23 for the Council to provide advice and guidance on ERDF technical requirements as well as assisting in the processing of grant claims.

·         Get Greater Manchester digital - £50k in 2020/21 to fund a digital Inclusion officer role for two years.

Decisions

1.         To note the outturn position for 2019/20.

2.         To note the Housing Revenue Account position for 2019/20.

3.         To note the overall General Fund position for 2019/20.

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

5.         To approve the use of and transfer to reserves as set out above.

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

7.         To note the allocation of COVID-19 funding received by the Council.