Issue - meetings

Consider report by Chief Financial Officer providing budgetary control statements for the Council’s General Fund.  (Copy attached).

4.1       There had been circulated copies of a report by the Chief Financial Officer providing the budgetary control statements for the Council’s General Fund based on actual expenditure and income to 30 September 2019 and providing explanations of the major variances identified between projected outturn expenditure/income and the current approved budget. The report explained that the last revenue monitoring report, approved by the Executive Committee on the 20August, noted the significant risks associated with Health & Social Care in delivering a balanced outturn position for 2019/20.  Since the last report Corporate Management Team (CMT) had assessed updated financial projections for H&SC. Information prepared with the department indicated significant underlying pressures of £2.518m in excess of budget remain.  Those pressures, if not contained, would result in a year end overspend for the Council.  Consequently, CMT had developed a series of budget measures designed to bring the revenue account back into balance by 31 March 2020.  If those actions were not successful however, or if further unfunded issues emerged, those pressures would result in a year end overspend.  The report further explained that the measures identified included settlement of the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) dispute (£0.840m), a further transfer of resources from the Integration Joint Board (IJB) (£0.925m) and a range of actions, highlighted in section 3 to the report, to deliver underspends in other services (£0.753m) to help offset adverse variances projected in Health and Social Care.  Taken together those measures allowed a forecast balanced outturn position at 31 March 2020 to be reported for the Council.  As the year progressed further pressures were likely to emerge and in anticipation CMT had now instructed a freeze on discretionary expenditure, including managed delays in recruitment to non-frontline posts.  Finance staff continued to support managers in their forecasting responsibilities with month-end forecasting tools being automatically emailed out to all budget managers directly from Business World.  Further progress had been made in engaging and training of managers, work continued across the Council to ensure ownership of the budget by managers, their full engagement in the monitoring process and the robustness and accuracy of projections.

4.2       The report also explained that good progress was being made in the delivery of savings in the current year as shown in Appendix 4.  As at 30 September 2019, 62% (£8.176m) of the savings required by the approved budget had been delivered within the current year.  A further 22% (£2.827m) was profiled to be delivered during the remainder of 2019/20 with the remaining 17% (£2.260m) having temporary in-year mitigations to deliver alternative savings.  Emphasis during the remainder of 2019/20 needed to be placed on delivering all outstanding savings permanently per the 2019/20 Financial Plan, including those for which only temporary solutions had been found.  This was particularly important given the scale of the full year savings required (£13.263m), including those brought forward from 2018/19 requiring permanent solutions and the requirement to deliver ambitious savings plans in future financial years within the Financial Plan.  Mr Robertson explained  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4