Agenda and minutes

To receive the non-exempt minutes of the meeting of the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – Resources held on 4 March 2021

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – Resources held on 4 March 2021 be received.

(Questions may be submitted to be answered by the Scrutiny Committee, or Council officers who are attending the meeting as witnesses, on any item that is within the scope of the Committee. Please see the procedure for the submission of questions attached)

There were no public questions.

Peter Handford, Director of Finance and ICT attended the meeting and provided members with a presentation on the challenges faced by local authorities in ensuring financial sustainability.

          The information provided Members with details of financial resilience in the local government sector.  Concerns had been expressed regarding the future funding of local authorities, with the position exacerbated by the financial challenges generated for local authorities by the Covid-19 pandemic.           

The presentation provided Members with background to the significant issues faced by local authorities, highlighting the funding gap experienced by the sector in the last decade, the financial pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic and the uncertainties and risk faced over the short and medium-term.

In terms of local context, details were given of the need to set a balanced budget, the Revenue Outturn 2020/21, the Five Year Financial Plan and Reserve Balance.

Mitigations in place included: robust procedures and processes to support budget setting, monitoring and medium-term financial planning; unqualified opinion on the Councils Statement of Accounts and Value for money conclusion; Financial Management Code; and experienced officers.

Members made a number of comments and asked questions which were duly noted or answered by Mr Handford.

  The Chairman thanked Mr Handford for his update.

RESOLVED to note the presentation on Financial Resilience in Local Authorities.

A discussion took place with regards to the future Work Programme of the Committee. A number of suggestions were put forward by members for consideration and the Chairman agreed that he and the Improvement & Scrutiny Officer would liaise further and meet with the appropriate Executive Directors to discuss any potential reviews.

To move that under Section 100(a)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that in view of the nature of the business, that if members of the public were present exempt information as defined in Paragraph 4 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 would be disclosed to them and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information

RESOLVEDthat under Section 100(a)(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 the public be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business on the grounds that in view of the nature of the business, that if members of the public were present exempt information as defined in Paragraph 4 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 would be disclosed to them and the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

To receive the exempt minutes of the meeting of the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – Resources held on 4 March 2021

RESOLVED that the exempt minutes of the meeting of the Improvement and Scrutiny Committee – Resources held on 4 March 2021 be received.