Agenda item

To consider the budget monitoring position as at October 2016 – 17.  

Cabinet received a report providing the budget monitoring position up to 31st October 2016-17 for both revenue and capital budgets, including an update on key activity data for the council’s highest risk budgets.

Mrs Crabtree, Deputy Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement was in attendance to introduce the report for members. In particular she referred to the following information:

Revenue Budget:

1. That the forecast revenue pressure was currently £7.484m, after Corporate Director adjustments, increasing to £8.295m when roll forward requirements were added.  Mrs Crabtree expressed concern at the position and reminded members of the importance of managing the position to at least a balanced position.
2. Pressures remained in the areas of support for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children, SEN transport and Waste budgets, partially offset by improvements within Financing Items, Children’s Disability and GET management & support budgets.
3. Senior management had worked together to identify common areas where spend could be reduced and remained committed to achieving a balanced position by year end without imposing an authority wide moratoria. Actions would include holding vacancies for non-essential posts and director level authorisation for those posts that were recruited to would be required.

Mr Andy Wood, Corporate Director for Finance and Procurement, spoke to the item; in particular he referred to the following:

         i.        That everything that could be done, without causing problems for the future, or compromising the performance of statutory duties, was being done.

       ii.        That the budget contained areas of underspend that could be utilised to manage any overspend such as the budget allocation for redundancy costs which was unlikely to be fully utilised and could be used to reduce any overspend if necessary.

      iii.        That previous prudent action to create and maintain healthy reserves meant that if the year did end with a small overspend it could be met by utilising these funds.

Cabinet and Corporate Directors discussed the report and the following comments were made:

Mr Peter Oakford, Cabinet Member for Specialist Children’s Services reported that the Council had been invited to bid for funds for extraordinary spending in the area of asylum and a bid would be submitted before Christmas but he was not optimistic that the full £2million overspend would be mitigated.

Mr Roger Gough, Cabinet Member for Education and health Reform addressed the matter of pressures on the SEN Home to School Transport budget.  Demand had been and continued to be higher than expected and work continued to address this.

Mr Graham Gibbens, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health, spoke about the continued pressures on the Social Care budget.  He informed members that the problems experienced at Kent were affecting council’s nationally too.  He highlighted as evidence of the problems being faced, the pressure reported on the Mental Health budget, the smallest of the four Adult Social Care budgets, which was currently forecast at £2.7million.

Mr Mathew Balfour, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, supported comments made by Mr Wood regarding maintenance of assets and concurred that saving money on these areas of work would ultimately cost the council more money and was therefore a false economy that should not be undertaken.

Mr Andrew Ireland, Corporate Director for Social Care, Health and Wellbeing reiterated Mr Gibbens comments regarding the existing pressures on social care budgets nationally and the impact on them of pressures experienced by the NHS on healthcare budgets.  He warned members that further pressures could be experienced as, although there was some provision within the social care budget to manage the impact of winter on older people, it would be a difficult task to remain within it, in light of the pressures being experienced by the NHS. 

Mr John Simmonds, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement concluded the debate, he confirmed that Cabinet Members continued to lobby the government to address some of the pressures being experienced in Kent and elsewhere and expressed concern for future budgets which would become increasingly difficult to manage without intervention.