Issue - meetings

(Report of the Leader of the Council)

Report of the Leader of the Council to provide Cabinet with an overview of Council performance for the second quarter of the 2023-24 financial year (July to September 2023). It reports the position in relation to progress with strategic projects and updates on the financial position, corporate risk, audit, information governance and complaints. The report was considered by Corporate Scrutiny Committee on 20th December 2023.

(Report of the Leader of the Council)

The chair noted that apologies had been received from the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council and handed over to the Chief Executive to introduce the report of the Leader of the Council to provide the Committee with an overview of Council performance for the second quarter of the 2023-24 financial year (July to September 2023). It reports the position in relation to progress with strategic projects and updates on the financial position, corporate risk, audit, information governance and complaints. Cabinet will consider the report on 30th November 2023.

The Chief Executive introduced the new Executive Director for Finance, and Section 151 Officer,  Rebecca Smeathers and thanked Pardeep Kateria for the work on producing the new format of the report before highlighting the following information from the reported –

Ø  Section 2 – The Future High Street Fund is showing as Amber due to extreme cost pressures on the programme and will be address via a report going to Full Council in December to look at the project.

Ø  Section 3 – looks at the general spend in quarter 2.

Ø  Section 3.2 – looks at a Universal Credit summary at a point in time and shows a small increase in trends.

Ø  Section 3.3 – looks at the impact of welfare benefit reform included at members request. This shows things are broadly the same.

NNDR figures are broadly similar to previous years however some distorted figures are shown due to a reduction in retail relief and the additional post-Covid grant.

Council Tax collection rates were slightly above target.

The Assistant Direct, neighbourhoods clarified the housing figures – the numbers on Universal credit had increased due to continued migration on to the new system. Collection rates on current arrears have improved from this time last year.

Write Offs – whilst amounts are written off, the Council will continue to try to recover these.

Live caseload of Universal Credit has remained stable.

Ø  Section 3.4 – the Medium Term Financial Strategy was introduced by Rebecca Smeathers who highlighted that that the general fund monitoring position is showing a £1.4m underspend against the approved budget which is attributed to interest rates on balances.

Housing revenue account currently has an underspend however is predicted to be in line with budget by the end of the year. Capital expenditure is also showing an underspend.

Ø  Section 4 - The Corporate Risk Management register remains largely unchanged however uncertainty over local Government finance has impacted.

Ø  Section 5 – Audit update, it was highlighted that figures do not match with the Audit and Governance report that was shared at Committee in October, and that the Council has achieved 25% (not 0%) of the Audit plan which includes three audits deferred from 2022/2023, it is expected that we will achieve audit plan by year end.

Ø  Section 6 – Information Governance data. This is the second quarter of the new processes, so it is difficult to read trends from this until there is twelve months  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53