Agenda item

To present the 2021/22 forecast outturn position against the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) revenue budgets and Capital Programme that the Committee is responsible for, in order to give an expectation of possible variances against budget.

The Principal Accountant introduced the report and gave an overview of each section which included:

General Fund Revenue Budget Position

He drew the Committees attention to table 1 on page 46 of the document pack and confirmed that there was a projected overspend of £10k.

General Fund Capital Programme

The Principal Accountant highlighted a few key points regarding table 2 on page 47 of the document pack, these included:

·        There was a small error with the totals. The Revised Budget total should have read ‘2,531’ which would in turn alter the Outturn Variance total to be ‘(181)’. This was due to a last minute amendment not pulling through to the totals.

·        The large variance for the Green Homes LADS project due to previous allocations of funding being brought forward into the current year.

·        The temporary accommodation budget of £500k had been removed from the programme due to the reasons explained earlier by the Accountancy Manager.

He also drew attention to Table 3 on page 48 which showed the HRA revenue summary and highlighted the key variances which included:

• Total Income showed a loss of £336k, which was mostly due to a higher number of void properties than expected.
• Supervision and Management showed a £372k underspend, this was due to a number of posts being vacant, and £107k of that was set aside for IT software which has been delayed into later on in the year.
• Repairs and Maintenance had an £480k overspend again due to the pressures of voids. This also included £167k overspend in Property Care for specialist roles e.g. roofing and drainage.

Finally, he drew the Committees attention to Table 5 on page 51 of the document pack which showed the current breakdown of the Capital Programme and highlighted the key projects which included:

·        Major works

·        Other Capital Works such as the new Housing IT system

·        New Build and Regeneration

·        Independent Living Housing Modernisation

·        Acquisitions.

Councillor Baker questioned what the Housing IT system would be used for and when it was likely to be implemented. It was confirmed that they were due to go out to tender that month for the IT system and it would be used for tenancy management, Repairs and Maintenance and Property Care Services. The system would likely not be ready for implementation for the next 9 months.

After a question raised by Councillor Housden, the Accountancy Manager agreed to get back to him with the figures surrounding the loss of income from empty dwellings and how many of those had been empty for over 4 weeks.

In response to questions, the Strategic Director of Communities confirmed the extra £250k was set aside for additional resources for void properties. Although they were more efficient with this process this year than in previous years, there was still a huge backlog that needed to be worked through from the Covid lockdown period.

Councillor Baker proposed and Councillor Davies seconded.

Councillor Housden debated whether performance had improved due to the lack of the figures requested.

After being put to a vote, the Motion was carried unanimously.