Issue - meetings

Matt Sanham, Head of Finance and Procurement introduced the report and made the following comments:

·  There was overspend on temporary accommodation;

·  This was not unusual at this time of the period under review;

·  There was a forecast of £1.4million surplus for the Housing Revenue Account (HRA);

·  Cabinet had proposed budget changes and sought Full Council consent to those recommendations.

Members asked questions and made comments as follows:

·  Why was the Council expecting car imports this when this had not happened in the previous year?

·  The Maritime Services budget of £330k was creating false expectations;

·  Basing expectations that were based on windfall of unconfirmed opportunities was not a viable financial planning approach;

·  Was the significantly high expenditure for the Homelessness budget driven by greater number of people appearing on streets due to increased evictions?

·  Was the largest proportion of this expenditure due to cost of temporary accommodation?

·  If the cost of temporary accommodation was significant on the budget expenditure the council should consider purchasing more housing;

·  How were the ongoing issues regarding the bridge impacting operations at the Ramsgate Port?

·  Were costs for the Berth 4/5 available?

·  The expected levels of inflation had dropped. Would this impact the overspend?

Matt Sanham and Mike Humber responded to Member questions and comments as follows:

·  If there were no car imports, new ad hoc opportunities would bring in income;

·  Homelessness was also driven by evictions. The Council would need to put measures in place to mitigate the impact of this aspect of the budget;

·  The work on Berth 4/5 including the electrics were completed, ready for use by Bretts;

·  The bridge was out of service as some repairs were going on hoping that it would back in service by Christmas;

·  Costs would be recovered from the contractor who did the original works;

·  The council built the budget based on known assumptions.

Members noted the report.

Report to follow

Cabinet considered the budget monitoring report for the second quarter of 2023/24. The key financial messages in the report were that the General Fund net revenue spending was forecast to be approximately £1.2m over budget, which was largely due to an anticipated overspend on temporary accommodation for homelessness and a shortfall against some of the income streams.

Cabinet noted that overspend was not unusual at this time of year and this did not raise any serious concerns about the finances as a whole. Members further noted the following that:

• All budgets would continue to be regularly monitored to ensure that the council’s expenditure remained, wherever possible, within the agreed budget limits;

• The Housing Revenue Account was forecasting a £1.4m surplus against the budget, which was mainly due to better returns on the HRA investment balances and reduced debt charges;

• Section 6.5 and 6.6 of the report set out some recommended changes to the capital programme, including increasing the budget for disabled adaptations in residents’ homes following the receipt of additional external funding.

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

1.  To note:

i)  The General Fund revenue budget 2023/24 forecast position.

ii)  The General Fund Capital Programme 2023/24 forecast position.

iii)  The Housing Revenue Account position.

2.  To recommend to Council for approval the supplementary budgets for:

i)  The £5k requirement for the VAT inspection preparation is funded from the VAT reserve as set out in section 3.2;

3.  To approve the capital programme budget adjustment, numbered (i), as set out in section 6.5 and Annex 1 to this report;

4) To recommend to Council for approval the supplementary capital budget, numbered (i) to (ii), as set out in section 6.6 and Annex 1 to the Cabinet report.