Decision details

That approval is sought from the Chief Finance Officer in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning for the additional budget required to continue the delivery of disabled facility grants to the residents of South Kesteven for the remainder of the financial year 23/24 by utilising the Housing Delivery Reserves from previous years underspend.

That approval is granted for the allocation of £400,000 from the Housing Delivery Reserve in order to fund the additional demands for Disabled Facility Grants for the remainder of the 2023/24 financial year.

South Kesteven have around £400,000 of Disabled Facility Grants awaiting approval for the remainder of the financial year which at present cannot be approved as the existing budget has been committed or spent.

At the start of the financial year 23/24 South Kesteven District Council were provided with a total of £1,060,000 from the Better Care Fund to deliver disabled facility grants to residents in need of adaptations within their properties.

As of 22 November 2023, the budget position was as follows:

Table 1 – current budget position

This demonstrates that the Disabled Facility Grants has either spent or committed the budget for the year and therefore at present is unable to approve any further works for the remainder of the year.

There are 152 adaptations in the pipeline yet to approve, some of which can be approved and completed this year if funding was available.

The adaption amounts that can be approved and potentially completed this year amounts to £400,000. These works are either stairlifts, modular ramps or adaptions that have had the required surveys and are awaiting approval for contractors to proceed with such as level access showers.

It is requested that the Chief Finance Officer in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning approves the additional £400,000 be added to the Disabled Facility Grants budget from the Housing Delivery Reserve.

The expected year end position for the full budget of £1,460,000 if approved is as follows:

Table 2 – Expected year end budget position.

*Consists of existing actual plus £480,418 of the existing committed turning to actuals and the additional remaining £52,000 on salaries

** current underspend is being held to account for any variations on existing jobs and therefore may not be an underspend but actual spend by year end

The projected year end budget position demonstrates that by year end if the additional funds are approved that the majority except for £67,510 will be actual spend meaning that the required adaptions have been completed and invoices paid. This year end position has been calculated by assessing the current works in progress and the additional works expected completion times based upon type of works and experience of the delivery of these works.

The caveat to the expected year end position is that some aspects are outside the Disabled Facility Grants Team to control, such as some works taking longer than expected due to additional identified works, lead times for specialist equipment or where adaptions are no longer required for reasons such as proposed recipient unfortunate passing away.