Agenda item

A report from the Joint Chief Finance Officer, Bury Council and Bury CCG is attached.

Mike Woodhead, Chief Finance Officer presented a report updating the Committee on the authority’s financial position in line with the Committee’s Statement of Purpose to ‘Provide independent scrutiny of the authority’s financial and non-financial performance to the extent that it affects the authority’s exposure to risk and weakens the control environment’.

It was reported that that the authority is projecting an overspend of £0.467m for the year, based on spending and income information as at 31 August 2019.

It was explained that the Authority’s financial position is continually monitored throughout the year, monthly reports are considered by departmental management teams and summaries available to Cabinet Members. A monthly summary is submitted to the Joint Executive Team and discussed with Cabinet Members on budgets within their portfolios.

Four themed Budget Recovery Boards have also been established to oversee the implementation of savings plans, to develop further pipeline schemes, to monitor additional pressures arising in year, and to identify mitigations. A Council –CCG wide system of tracking progress has been implemented and a savings tracker is updated and shared with senior managers and JET on a fortnightly basis. The four boards are:

·         Health and Care

·         Corporate Core

·         Business Growth and Investment

·         Operations and Other Council Services

Other measures include a £1000 per transaction procurement limit, a Budget Control Group that considers requests for filling vacant posts, a review of external staff resources such as contractors and consultants.

Included in the report was information setting out the outturn forecast, commitment accounting, balance sheet monitoring, procurement activity and the minimum level of balances.

Mike reported that the Council was confident that the books would be balanced for the 2019/2020 financial year and that the savings proposals and plans for the following financial year will be robust.

Those present were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments and the following points were raised:

·         Councillor Gold referred to the figure of £467,000 that was set out in the report and asked if this was for the full year.

It was explained that this was the forecast at the second quarter and this would reduce further as more actual figures were known.

·         Councillor Wright referred to money being moved from the CCG to help the Council and asked whether the CCG budget would suffer because of this.

Mike Woodhead explained that the agreement came from the CCG and was the contingency from the Better Care Fund and wasn’t ring-fenced for specific services. It was acknowledged that the CCG will struggle to balance the books but the Council and CCG were working together and looking at pooling and aligning where possible.

·         Councillor Wright referred to the CCG having an Audit Committee also and asked whether there should be joint meetings of the Committees.

It was explained that the current legislation wouldn’t allow for a joint committee and until this changed they would be 2 separate legal entities. There was however the possibility of undertaking a joint piece of work.

Karen Murray stated that a joint piece of work could be commissioned but would have to report to each Audit Committee.

·         Councillor Gold referred to the £467,000 figure and asked if any further projected figures were available.

It was explained that the figures in the report take account of Quarter 3 & 4. The quarter 5 figures would be less.

·         Councillor N Jones referred to the recent rise to the PWLB rates and asked how this had affected the Council’s borrowing.

Mike explained that the rates were still very low and wouldn’t make borrowing prohibitively expensive. There were also other sources of borrowing at better rates for short term that the Council could consider.

·         Councillor Walker referred to 3.2 of the report where it stated that Members would be alerted to potential pressures so that they can monitor the situation and take ownership. Councillor Walker asked who the members would be.

It was explained that this referred to the portfolio holders of the relevant services. It was expected that these Members would be fully aware.

Delegated decision:

That the contents of the report be noted.