Agenda item

[Note: Councillors L.D. Evans, and A. Vaughan Owen, having earlier declared an interest in this item, repeated their declarations but remained in the meeting.]

The Cabinet considered the revenue budget monitoring report which provided the latest budgetary position as at 31^st December 2022 in respect of 2022/2023.

Overall, the monitoring report forecast an overspend for the year at departmental level of £6,259k with a forecast overspend on the Authority’s net revenue budget of £270k.  The Cabinet was advised that the largest variance remained the unfunded pay awards, which had now been included at a departmental level and had enhanced the overspend position in some departments.  Figures had been updated to reflect the effect of the chancellor’s reversal of the health and social care levy, which provided a saving of 1.25% on employer’s national insurance contributions from November.

In addition, there remain:

·         overspends in service areas driven by increased demand combined with reduced grant funding versus previous years, particularly Learning Disabilities and Children’s Service.

·         A sustained reduction in commercial income, covering car parks, leisure centres and school meals.

·         Capital financing underspends due to scheme delays and a reduced need to borrow.  The inherent underspend was £3m, against which £750k direct had been committed to cover the tendered price increase required to proceed with the Oriel Myrddin project, which attracts c. £1m national lottery match funding.

It was stated that significant negotiations by Welsh Government over the Teachers pay awards and the current position in respect of the September 2022 pay award was that the Minister initially offered an uplift of 5% to all statutory salary points, which was further negotiated by the unions and eventually the Minister agreed a revised offer for 2022/23 comprising of a further 1.5% consolidated increase and a 1.5% non-consolidated payment, with the non-consolidated element being only for this academic year. The understanding was that WG would be funding the additional 3% for this academic year and therefore schools would be presented with a shortfall of 1% in their Teachers Pay budget from September to March, due to the fact that at the start of the financial year only 4% had been validated into the budget.

The shortfall and the impact on both the school’s budget and the Corporate Budget had been considered and it was proposed that the Authority provided the schools with the additional funding of approximately £600k. which would ensure schools would have no shortfall in the teachers pay budget for this year.

It was also proposed to provide the schools with the additional budgetary funding for the shortfall in the non-teaching staff budgets which would increase school budgets by another £900k.  In total it was proposed to uplift school budgets for 2022/23 by £1.5m from County Council resources to fund the shortfall that school face due to the pay awards during 2022/23.

It was stated that whilst commercial income continued to recover, public use of car parks, as well as leisure centre usage remained well below pre-pandemic levels and was contributing to the overspend picture.

It was noted that as part of the 2022/23 budget setting process, the Authority had agreed a £3m in-year contingency budget which was currently held centrally and provided a partial offset to the current pressures.  Furthermore, it was reported that £200k has been used to offset the increase in fuel prices impacting on School Transport.

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED that: