Issue details

This report provides the Executive with details of the actual revenue expenditure for 2021/22 for the General Fund and Housing Revenue and Repairs Account and seeks approval for the completion, in 2022/23, of two of the 2021/22 expenditure programmes.

The General Fund actual net revenue expenditure on services for 2021/22 total £9,842,001 which is £973,899 less than that budgeted for the year.  The main reason for this was higher income in some areas where recovery was quicker than anticipated.

The Council continued to receive some COVID funding during 2021/22 but this was mainly in the first quarter of the year as other forms of recovery funding became available during the latter part of the year. In total over £900,00 of general funding was received with further funding targeting specific areas such as homelessness that also received over £900,000 to help offset the demands on that service.

There continued to be further support for business and individuals affected by the pandemic and these totalled over £3million during the year.

The final net budget outturn position is £595,298 less that the final revised budget agreed by the Executive in February 2022.  This has meant that the anticipated drawing from reserves of £404,200 has not materialised.  This is partly due to some services such as car parking starting to recover towards the end of the year, a large increase in the price paid for recycled material and also due to the corporate efforts in reducing spend where it was possible.

It has not been possible to complete a number of expenditure programmes in 2021/22 and approval is sought to compete those where expenditure had already been committed during 2021/22, at a cost of £53,200.  This will reduce the underspend to £157,917 once COVID funding is taken into account.

This underspend will need to be transferred to reserves to help protect the council’s financial position going forward.  Some trends in increased expenditure such as fuel prices have continued into 2022/23 and income streams such as car parking may not recover to the levels they were 5 years ago and the Government’s financial support schemes may start to disappear.  The Council’s underlying financial position has therefore worsened.  We will be reviewing this in more detail when the Medium-Term Finance Strategy is completed later in 2022 along with a plan to address the forecasted funding gaps.

The final figures for the Housing Revenue and Repairs Account (HRA) in 2021/22 show that the HRA revenue reserve has been increased by £630,903.  Overall, total HRA Reserves have increased by £1.169 million.