Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Finance and Resources

Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Finance and Resources (Section 151 Officer) that would also be considered at the meeting of the Audit and Procurement Committee on 21^st July 2025 and the meeting of Council on 2^nd September 2025. The report outlined the final revenue and capital outturn position for 2024/25, and reviewed treasury management activity and 2024/25 Prudential Indicators reported under the Prudential Code for Capital Finance. Appendices to the report provided: a detailed breakdown of Directorate Revenue Variations; Capital Programme Changes and Analysis of Rescheduling; and Prudential Indicators.

The overall financial position included the following headline items:

•  An underspend of £1.8m, balanced by a contribution to earmarked reserves.

•  Capital Programme expenditure of £128.8m.

•  A small increase in the level of available Council revenue reserves from £118m to £119m.

The Council had faced significant pressures within both Adults and Children’s Social Care, and City Services. Other overspends were also being reported in Regeneration and Economic Development, Legal and Governance, People, and Organisational Development. These financial pressures were being caused by a combination of continued increases in service demand, complexity of cases and social care market conditions, legacy inflation impacts, income shortfalls due to reduced activity, and slippage in the delivery of some service savings.

The underlying revenue position had improved by £8.8m since Quarter 3 where an overspend of £7.0m was being forecast. The majority of the improved position related to increased one-off income within Contingency and Central budgets which were set out in section 2.1.4 in the report.

RESOLVED that Cabinet:

1)  Approves the final balanced revenue outturn position after a contribution of £1.8m to reserves.

2)  Approves the final capital expenditure and resourcing position (section 2.3 and Appendix 2 of the report), incorporating expenditure of £128.8m against a final budget of £144.6m; £16.0m expenditure rescheduled into 2025/26 and £0.2m overspend.

3)  Approves the outturn Prudential Indicators position in section 2.4.4 and Appendix 3 of the report.

4)  Recommends that Council approves the contribution to reserves of £1.8m for the purposes described in Section 5.1 of the report.