Issue - meetings

To accept the report and consider the final financial position of the Council's departments for 2025/26:

Noting that there is substantial expenditure above the budget by the Adults, Health and Well-being Department, the Children and Families Department and the Environment Department in 2025/26 (see Column A in the table above). The following financial virements (explained in Appendix 2) were approved –

· The departments that are over-spending to receive one-off financial assistance and to limit the overspend that will be carried forward by the Department to £100k (see column B in the table above).

· It was confirmed to provide financial support of £269k above the contracted payment to Byw'n Iach (see column C in the table above).

· To fund the overspend of £1.256 million in the Waste field by using £786k from the Parc Adfer Contributory Earnings Recovery Fund and £470k from the Producer Extended Responsibility Fund for packaging materials (see column CH in the table above).

· To allocate a financial bid of up to £800k to the Housing and Property Department to fund the pressure on the emergency accommodation service in 2026/27.

· On Corporate budgets:

- use from the corporate underspend (£2.8 million) to assist the departments that have overspent in 2025/26.

- the remainder (of £3.174 million) required to fund all requirements to be funded from the Council's Financial Strategy Support Fund.

– the underspend (of £914k) on Council Tax Premium is transferred to the Council Tax Premium fund for use to be determined by Cabinet.

The amounts to be carried forward were approved (the "Adjusted Over/(Under) Expenditure" column in column D above and column D of Appendix 1).

To approve the financial virements from the Council's Financial Strategy Support Fund as outlined in Appendix 3 following a review of the funds.

- £6.6 million being moved to the Council's general balances 

- £1.5 million being moved to the Building Safeguarding Fund.

The report was submitted by Cllr Huw Wyn Jones. 

DECISION

RESOLVED

To accept the report and consider the final financial position of the Council's departments for 2025/26:

Noting that there is substantial expenditure above the budget by the Adults, Health and Well-being Department, the Children and Families Department and the Environment Department in 2025/26 (See Column A in the table above). The following financial virements (explained in Appendix 2) were approved –

· The departments that are over-spending to receive one-off financial assistance and to limit the overspend that will be carried forward by the Department to £100k (See column B in the above table).

· To confirm the financial support of £269k above the contracted payment to Byw'n Iach (see column C in the table above).

· To fund the overspend of £1.256 million in the Waste field by using £786k from the Parc Adfer Contributory Earnings Recovery Fund and £470k from the Producer Extended Responsibility Fund for packaging materials (See column CH in the above table).

· To allocate a financial bid of up to £800k to the Housing and Property Department to fund the pressure on the emergency accommodation service in 2026/27.

· On Corporate budgets:

- use (£2.8 million) of the corporate underspend to assist the departments that have overspent in 2025/26.

- the remainder of (£3.174 million) required to fund all requirements to be funded from the Council's Financial Strategy Support Fund.

– the underspend of (£914k) on Council Tax Premium is transferred to the Council Tax Premium fund for use to be determined by Cabinet.

The amounts to be carried forward were approved (the "Over/(Under) Adjusted Expenditure" column in column D above and column D of Appendix 1).

To approve the financial virements from the Council's Financial Strategy Support Fund as outlined in Appendix 2 following a review of the funds.

- £6.6 million being moved to the Council's general balances 

- £1.5 million being moved to the Building Safeguarding Fund.

DISCUSSION

The report was presented stating that a summary of the final position of all sections was provided in Appendix 1 of the report.

The contents of Appendix 2 were detailed, reporting on some of the main points. It was noted that expenditure in the fields of children's out-of-county placements, waste, residential care and domiciliary care continued to be higher than the budget allocated to them. It was highlighted that the underspend on corporate budgets was helping to alleviate the financial position for the Council as a whole. It was added that £3.2 million from the Financial Strategy Fund would need to be used to balance out the departments' financial deficit situation.

It was stated that the budgetary deficit of the Adults, Health and Well-being Department had been reduced to £1.4 million, recognising that the pressure on delivery services was responsible for most of the departmental pressure.

In reference to the Children and Families Department, it was explained that there had been an increase of 11 out-of-county placements including exceptional cases of unregistered placements. It was reiterated that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10