Decision details

The Committee considered a report which provided the current forecast outturn for the financial year 2024/25 based on the Council’s income, expenditure and known commitments as at the end of August 2024. The report also identified actions that were being taken to address adverse variances to urgently address financial sustainability. The Second Financial review forecast revenue outturn was forecasting an adverse variance of £20.1m. This was before the application of any exceptional financial support.

Highways & Infrastructure were forecasting an underspend of £0.6m against a net budget of £16m. The key reasons for the underspend were due to vacancy management and increased income.

An exercise was being undertaken to review the capital programme and schemes were being reprofiled where possible to make them more affordable.

RESOLVED (Unanimously):

That the Highways and Transport Committee

1.    note the factors leading to a forecast adverse Net Revenue financial pressure of £20.1m against a revised budget of £395.4m (5.1%) and note the contents of Annex 1, Section 2 of the report on the progress of the delivery of the MTFS approved budget policy change items, the RAG ratings and latest forecasts and the actions to be taken to address any adverse variances from the approved budget.

2.    note the in-year forecast capital spending of £157.7m against an approved MTFS budget of £215.8m due to slippage that has been re-profiled into future years.

3.    note the available reserves position as per Annex 1, Section 5 of the report.

4.    Approve the Supplementary Capital Estimate above £500,000 up to and including £1,000,000 as per Annex 1, Section 4, Table 4 of the report.