Issue - meetings

Purpose of the report

To present the Council’s forecast 2024/25 financial position as at end of December 2024. The report covered the General Fund Revenue Budget, Housing Revenue Account Budget, and the capital programmes and reserves overview for the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account.

Decision

That Cabinet noted the forecast 2024/2025 outturn position for the General Fund, Housing Revenue Account Revenue and Capital budgets as at the end of December 2024.

Alternative options considered and rejected

The report was for noting – therefore no other options were considered.

Reasons for the decision

This report provided an overview of the forecast 2024/25 financial position for the Council and focused on the position as at the end of December 2024.

Effective budget management was critical to ensuring financial resources were targeted towards the Council’s priorities. Monitoring enabled early identification of variations against the plan and timely corrective action.

SKDC remained in a strong financial position. Investment income was performing above budgeted levels, which was due to good management and the market conditions.

Some expenditure needed to be reclassified for both the General Fund and the Housing Revenue Account, as it had originally been intended to be capital but was actually revenue in nature. Some overspends in both capital programmes had been offset.

Although virements of monies had taken place between different budget lines there was no overall impact on the financing of budgets.

The risk ‘Capital programmes requiring borrowing in the medium term’ within the risk register was highlighted. It was confirmed that this was a ‘very high’ risk in the medium rather than the short-term, as in the short-term capital expenditure could be funded from reserves or internal borrowing. It was a high risk in the medium term as beyond the current three-year programme external borrowing may be required.

Parking income was performing better than expected even with the offer of some free parking in the lead up to Christmas 2024.