Agenda item

Recommendations

That the Executive

(i)             Notes the outturn position again the 21024/25 Revenue Budget, as summarised in paragraph 2.2.1.

(ii)            Notes the outturn position against the 2024/25 Housing Revenue Account budget as detailed in section 2.3

(iii)           Approves up to £480k of Strategic Capacity Reserve to fund digital EHCP system (paragraph 2.5.2)

(iv)           Approves the transfer of uncommitted reserve balances to Strategic Capacity (paragraph 2.6.1)

(v)            Agrees to transfer the revenue net underspend of £2,590k to Capital Supply Chain Reserve (paragraph 2.6.2)

(vi)           Note the performance of the Treasury Management operation during 2024/25 and the position on Prudential Indicators.

(vii)          To note the position on capital outturn as detailed in Appendices A to D

(viii)        To recommend to the Council the proposed carry forward to 2024/25 of the net capital underspend totalling £8.0m as set out in paragraph 4.4.2.

(ix)           To recommend the release of £2.6m from the Capital Receipts Unapplied Reserve to address the funding gap in relation to the Towns Deal Fund Station Gateway scheme as set out in paragraph 4.3.2; and

(x)            To approve the financing of capital expenditure as detailed in paragraph 4.5.1.

Considered – A joint report of the Chief Executive and Corporate Director Resources bringing together key aspects of the Council’s performance on a quarterly basis.

The Executive Member for Corporate Services, Councillor Heather Phillips, introduced the report which covered the period 1 January 2025 to 31 March 2025 and drew Members’ attention to the following:

·         The Council was meeting its strategy targets within Planning and an improvement plan was in place

The Leader welcomed Members of Scrutiny Board to the meeting. In response to questions to Executive Members from Scrutiny Chairs and Member Champions the following was confirmed:

·         Vacancies within the Planning team were being addressed.  Under the improvement plan the council would be undertaking more pre-application work which would reduce the time taken to determine an application after it was submitted as applications would be of a better quality.  This would improve income and enable more planners to be employed.  A single planning system known as Uniform was being implemented over the next 12 to 18 months to replace the different legacy council systems.  This would enable resources to be moved to address capacity issues and also ensure an improved performance management regime and improved information.

·         The amount of residual waste generated and collected per household had decreased compared to the same quarter last year, and the amount of recycling, composting and reuse of materials had increased.  The increased use of landfill was down to insufficient capacity at the treatment plant when it was shut down and the only option was to send materials to landfill.  There were financial penalties for the treatment plant operator when it did not meet performance targets and the council continued to work with them to improve performance.

·         Reablement packages were offered for a period of 6 weeks to enable individuals to regain their independence at home. Where help was still needed after 6 weeks the likelihood was that long-term help was required, the 90 day period was a measure of how successful reablement was.  Long term support at home was considered better for the individual and taxpayer than a residential bed.

·         Referrals to children’s social care had plateaued at 0.5%, which was still a minor increase and this figure reflected the highest ever level of initial referrals.  The council was responding to increased demand and there was a change nationally following the Family First programme and the memorandum of understanding leading to significant improvements in social care.

·         The practice in North Yorkshire was to keep children within their own family setting, and rates of children in care were significantly lower than the national rates.  In North Yorkshire the rate was currently 44 per 10,000, compared with 65 for our statistical neighbours, 70 nationally and 80 regionally.

·         Many factors were leading to an increase in the number of child protection plans including social media, the impact of isolation and covid, cost of living and unrest around the world.  The council was continually seeking to recruit social workers and was not dependent on agency staff as other councils were.

·         The 20 week expectation for issuing of education, health and care plans was a national expectation to enable local authorities to be compared, and was not a target set by the council.  Improved educational psychologist capacity was improving the time taken to produce the plans.

·         Very low numbers of children return to school following a period of education at home.

·         A new set of housing KPIs had been developed and good progress was being made in obtaining data.  It was hoped that stock condition surveys of all council houses will have been completed by September 2026.

Revenue Budget, Treasury Management and Capital Plan

The Executive Member for Finance and Resources, Councillor Gareth Dadd, introduced each section of the report, and reported an underspend of £2.591m, which was less than 0.5% of projected spend, and masked an overspend of £16m across children’s and adult services.  An annual recurring deficit of £34-35m by 2027/28 was projected, and this position was likely to worsen given expected changes to the funding from government.

The Executive Member moved an additional recommendation that the Member Working Group on the Constitution be requested to look at amending the procedure rules in relation to notices of motion to require that any motion in relation to a change of policy includes details of financial implications and also climate change and equality impact assessments.

The Corporate Director of Resources, Gary Fielding, referred to the recommendation to transfer £480k of uncommitted reserves to the Strategic Capacity Reserve to fund the digital Education, Health and Care Plan system, which should produce savings of £200k pa in CYPS and £200k pa in business support.  Whilst this was within the Chief Executive’s delegation of £500k it was considered sensible and transparent to bring it to Executive for consideration.

The Corporate Director advised that a number of allocated reserves had been inherited from the eight legacy councils.  Now the new council was two years old the proposal was that those funds which had not yet been spent on earmarked projects now form part of the general reserve.  The new council had its own corporate priorities and business cases would need to be developed for legacy council projects wishing to proceed.  It was also proposed that the net understand of £2.591m be transferred to the Capital Supply Chain Reserve to protect the Council’s position on capital schemes.

In relation to Treasury Management the Executive Member reported that the interest on cash balances was above the industry average at £3.3m above budget.  The interest on loans to the Council’s own companies was £3.8m pa, providing additional shareholder value.

The Corporate Director provided a correction to the table at paragraph 3.7 – the figure of 146 on the bottom row should read 177.5 and “Net Borrowing” should be replaced with “Net Investments”.

On the Capital report the Corporate Director described the position in Scarborough in relation to the purchase of two buildings, Pavilion House and the former Comet building, and the Station Gateway project and Towns Deal Funding.  It was requested that £2.6m be released from the Capital Receipts Unapplied Reserve in relation to the acquisition of the two buildings.  The acquisition had previously been coded to the Towns Deal Funding; however the buildings did not form part of the Station Gateway project and the project would not be able to meet its objectives if the Fund was used to purchase the buildings. 

Resolved (unanimously)

That the Executive:

(i)            Notes the outturn position again the 21024/25 Revenue Budget, as summarised in paragraph 2.2.1.

(ii)           Notes the outturn position against the 2024/25 Housing Revenue Account budget as detailed in section 2.3

(iii)          Approves up to £480k of Strategic Capacity Reserve to fund digital EHCP system (paragraph 2.5.2)

(iv)          Approves the transfer of uncommitted reserve balances to Strategic Capacity (paragraph 2.6.1)

(v)           Agrees to transfer the revenue net underspend of £2,590k to Capital Supply Chain Reserve (paragraph 2.6.2)

(vi)          Requests the Member Working Group on the Constitution look at amending the procedure rules in relation to notices of motion to require that any motion in relation to a change of policy includes details of financial implications and also climate change and equality impact assessments.

(vii)        Note the performance of the Treasury Management operation during 2024/25 and the position on Prudential Indicators.

(viii)       To note the position on capital outturn as detailed in Appendices A to D

(ix)          To recommend to the Council the proposed carry forward to 2024/25 of the net capital underspend totalling £8.0m as set out in paragraph 4.4.2.

(x)           To recommend the release of £2.6m from the Capital Receipts Unapplied Reserve to fund the previously purchased Pavilion House and former Comet building as set out in paragraph 4.3.2; and

(xi)          To approve the financing of capital expenditure as detailed in paragraph 4.5.1.