Issue - meetings

To consider the report

-           to accept the situation and the relevant risks in the context of the Council’s budgets and its departments

-           to accept the Cabinet's decisions (16/6/20)

The Cabinet Member for Finance noted that the report had been submitted to the Cabinet on 16 June 2020 and that the Cabinet had approved all the recommendations and financial transactions. He emphasised that the Cabinet Members were all aware of their responsibility to keep to the budget. He noted that the situation in Adult Care and theoverspend in the Children and Families Department highlighted cause for concern.

The Senior Finance Manager set out the context and elaborated on the content of the report. Reference was made to a department by department summary of the situation, which highlighted the sums to be carried forward at the end of the year. It was highlighted that the Children and Families Department had an overspend of £3.4m at the end of the financial year, and that the Highways and Municipal Department had an overspend of £547k. Attention was drawn to the further details (appendix 2) and the evident and significant pressure facing the fields of care and waste management in attempting to reduce the impact on the people of Gwynedd by avoiding cutting services. Evidence was seen that there were difficulties in achieving savings.

It was shown that the Adults Department had seen an improvement in the financial situation by the end of the financial year, as a result of receiving and re-directing late grants and using one-off finance of 420k. Without these additional contributions, the department would have overspent by £1.5m; however, additional bids to the value of £1.8m had been received for 2020/21.

It was reported that there had been a further increase in the overspend tendency on operational services, placement and post-16 in the Children and Families Department; and so overspend of £3.4m was reported. It was reiterated that the situation was not unique to Gwynedd but rather a familiar situation across all authorities. Despite this, the situation continued to be one of concern and despite the further allocation of almost £2m to the Department's 2020/21 budget to address the increasing pressure, the failure to realise savings was a matter which needed to be solved - it was intended for this to be addressed in a further report to the Cabinet.

Further observations:

·         Highways and Municipal showed a reduction but waste had been a problematic area this year

·         Schools' balances had increased from £4m to £4.3m

·         Education and YGC had performed better than expected during the year

·         The Environment Department had seen underspend, and there had been one-off underspend on several corporate headings

·         Following a review of the adequacy of the Council's specific provisions and reserves at the closure of accounts, £825k of resources had been collected.

In response to a comment regarding the fact that several departments had included staff turnover as a problem, it was noted that, in general, if capital expenditure was not taken into account, ¾ of expenditure would be staff expenditure and that it was therefore inevitable that staff issues would arise. It was added that bids had been approved in certain departments to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6