Issue - meetings

Councillor Yates introduced the report, noting that it provided the Quarter 3 monitoring position in respect of the 2019-2020 General Fund budget and the Housing Revenue Account, for both capital and revenue. The overall general Fund revenue position is forecast to be an overspend of £867,000 at the year-end; this is a £138,000 deterioration compared to the position reported at Quarter 2, mainly due to further worsening in forecast income shortfalls.

Some elements of the 2019-2020 income shortfalls were assumed to continue into 2020-2021 and were funded in 2020-2021 by being built into the budget gap. The assumption was that management action would be taken to reduce the in-year income shortfalls and deliver the 2020-2021 budget. This quarter’s forecasts suggests that this action is still a work in progress, and it has not yet fed through to an improvement in the forecast.

Any overspends at the end of the current year will have to be funded from reserves. The Housing Revenue Account is forecast to underspend by £31000, details of which are in section 3 of the report. This is an increase on the £8,000 forecast underspend that was previously reported to Cabinet at Quarter 2.

Councillor Dexter spoke under Council Procedure Rule 20.1.

Councillor Yates proposed, Councillor Everitt seconded and Cabinet agreed the following:

1.  To note the 2019-20 Quarter 3 forecast position for:

a.  The General Fund;

b.  The Housing Revenue Account;

c.  The General Fund and Housing Revenue Account Capital Programmes;

2.  To the updated General Fund and Housing Revenue Account Capital Programmes as set out in Annex 1 and 2 to the Cabinet report.