Agenda item

The Committee considered the report and presentation of the Interim Corporate Director of Resources, presented by the Finance Manager for Adult and Health Services, which provided details of the quarter three forecast outturn budget position for the Adult and Health Service grouping, highlighting major variances in comparison with the budget for the year, based on the position to the end on December 2020 (for copy of report and presentation, see file of minutes).

Councillor Temple sought clarification on paragraph 10 of the report where you had a revised budget and asked how and when did they move from the original budget to the revised budget against where they measure everything.

In response, the Finance Manager focused on the three bigger figures on contributions to reserves. They started off with an original budget and then each quarter, they had various changes to the budget due to things happening during the year. The original budget was presented to Council in February then changed during the year for various reasons such as a contribution to corporate reserves and some outbreak control monies received that came directly to Public Health that was put into the corporate position which would then be utilised during the year to fund a number of different schemes to support COVID. They also had other reserves which they utilised such as the building, retirement and insurance reserve and the contribution to AHS cash limit for instance would be a contribution towards another reserve that would then be passed across towards some corporate reserves. In other areas they have had some projects that didn’t happen due to COVID so that money had gone back into reserves for this year to be utilised in future years. It was about changing the amount of money in the budget during the year to recognise changes when the money would be needed and a mechanism for moving money into the corporate centre that could then be utilised for other reasons.

Resolved: That the report be noted.