Members received and considered the report of the Chief Finance Officer on the Draft Revenue Budget and Capital Programme Outturn 2021/22, which had been referred to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Members’ information and for any recommended actions to Cabinet as necessary. This report updated Members on the Council’s finances as at the end of March 2022 and included a brief update on the Collection Fund performance. Members noted that all numbers in the report were subject to external audit and potential change.

There had been one reportable virement since the last financial update to Members. Car Parking fees paid by card attracted a commission charge from the card provider. The budget of £5,000 was held by the Resources department, but this should have been charged to the Housing and Community Services department as they received the income.

The Revenue Budget draft out turn as of 31 March 2022 indicated a surplus of £1.256m against the approved budget drawdown from reserves of £2.7m. This represented an improvement of £1.128m since the Quarter 3 forecast. The position was summarised in Appendix A to the report and material variances that had been identified since the last forecast were explained in the report. These included: an underspend in  Election expenses; salary savings from staff redeployed to work on Covid safety work funded by grants; a reduction in the cost of planning appeals; an underspend on the Local Development Framework costs; additional car parking income; additional income from garden and bulky waste collections; an underspend on leisure facilities due to the receipt of the National Leisure Relief grant; and further government grants received since the last forecast, the largest of which was £97k in relation to Homelessness Prevention.

The Capital Programme draft out turn as at 31 March 2022 was £12.3m, which was £66.2m lower than the revised budget and £3m lower than the Quarter 3 forecast. The main variances were outlined in the report and the overall position was summarised in Appendix B to the report.  Where schemes were forecast to underspend, it was still expected that they would be completed in future years. A revised programme was approved by Cabinet on 7 February 2022 as part of the Council’s Capital Strategy and future cashflows would continue to be monitored and reported until scheme completion.

The impact on reserves was a total draft drawdown of £2.121m against the planned use of £3.319m, which meant the Council had used £1.198m less from its reserves to fund the revenue budget and some capital schemes.

The council tax collection rate at the end of Quarter 4 was 98.01% of the collectable debit and 100.98% of the budgeted yield. Both figures were higher than the corresponding figures for 2020/21 by 1.25% and 4.38% respectively.

The business rates collection rate at the end of Quarter 4 was 96.99% of the collectable debit, which was 2.98% higher than the corresponding figure in 2020/21. The improvement was possibly as a result of the lifting of lockdown restrictions.

The draft revenue out turn for 2021/22 showed an overall deficit of £1.444m, which was £1.256m lower than the approved planned use of reserves. However, whilst this was clearly a positive outcome for the Council, budget pressures were expected to continue into 2022/23 and budget monitoring would play a crucial role in helping the Council achieve its Financial Stability objective laid out in the Corporate Plan.

The draft Capital Programme out turn indicated an underspend of £66.156m against the revised budget. However, this was largely due to the pace of the programme continuing to be slowed by the impact of the pandemic. Any scheme slippage would be carried forward into 2022/23 but would also be subject to review by the Finance department and Heads of Service.

Members thanked the Chief Finance Officer and his team for their work on the Council’s finances.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.