Enterprise and Communities
North Lanarkshire Council · 31 August 2022
Back to Housing Committee — 31 August 2022 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
Some pages contain no extractable text. They may be blank, graphics or scanned pages. OCR has not been applied.
Page 1
North Lanarkshire Council Report Housing Committee Does this report require to be approved? ☐ Yes ☒ No Ref GT/JMcG Date 31/08/22 Revenue Monitoring Report – Enterprise and Communities From Derek Brown, Depute Chief Executive E-mail telferg@northlan.gov.uk Telephone Greg Telfer, Business Finance Manager, 07583 010692 1. Background 1.1 The Council’s approved Financial Regulations require services to remain within their approved budgetary provision, and to report all significant deviations – defined as the higher of £100,000 or 5% - within their budget monitoring reports. Where significant deviations are identified, services must provide explanatory commentary, outline the action required to rectify such deviations and where relevant, must also highlight the impact this has on other budget headings. 1.2 The most significant financial risk facing Enterprise and Communities during 2022/23 is likely to be inflationary pressures across a number of service areas including fuel and utilities, food costs, waste tonnage and contractual inflation on property and road Executive Summary This report provides a summary of the financial performance of the Enterprise and Communities Service for the period 1 April 2021 to 22 July 2022 (Period 4). The report illustrates the projected outturn as at 31 March 2023, with major outturn variances highlighted and explained as per the Council’s approved Financial Regulations. In summary, at this early stage in the financial year the Enterprise and Communities Service is forecasting a year-end balanced budget position. Recommendations It is recommended that Committee: (1) Acknowledges the financial position of the 2023/23 Enterprise and Communities revenue budget. The Plan for North Lanarkshire Priority Improve economic opportunities and outcomes Ambition statement (25) Ensure intelligent use of data and information to support fully evidence based decision making and future planning
Page 2
maintenance contracts. It is anticipated that these burdens will be reported through service budget monitoring reports alongside the ongoing impact of the curtailment of non-essential expenditure with the overall impact managed corporately. 2. Report Summary of Financial Position 2.1 The Council approved its General Fund Revenue Budget on 17th February 2022, of which £146.298m (17%) represented the approved Net Revenue Budget for Enterprise and Communities. 2.1.1 At this early stage in the financial year, Enterprise and Communities is forecasting a year-end balanced budget position. 2.1.2 In addition to the inflationary pressures noted earlier in the report, the service is actively managing a number of addition burdens totalling £3.013m including: • school meal income, currently offset by cost reductions including staffing vacancies, • the phasing of delivery of office rationalisation savings, offset by in year management action and earmarked reserve balances, and • increased costs for the electrical charging point costs, offset by service management action. 2.1.3 Section 2.2 provides commentary on the financial performance of the Service. In addition, Appendices 1 to 7 of this report provide further explanation of the significant budget variations contributing to this outturn position. 2.1.4 The 2022/23 Enterprise and Communities budget incorporates £1.545m of savings previously approved by Council on 2 March 2021 with £0.797m of savings (52%) deliverable within the current financial year. Further information regarding particularly challenging savings is noted in paragraph 2.4 below. Analysis of Significant Variations 2.2 This early stage in the financial year the Enterprise and Communities service forecasts a year-end balanced budget position across all divisions for 2022/23. As at Period 4, there are compensating variances across the Service. Property costs are expected to overspend by £0.153m due to a delay in the timing of the delivery of office accommodation savings, however this offset by expected underspends in catering supplies through lower than anticipated volumes of food purchases. 2.2.1 Included within the reported outturn is the Council’s trading services. For 2022/23 the Council approved a surplus budget of £0.596m. The Council must comply with a statutory requirement to at least break-even over a rolling three year period. The combined surplus in 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 was £0.380m. As at Period 4 there are no significant variations to report with regards to trading services. 2.2.2 Payments to other bodies are detailed in Appendix 3. This expenditure category accounts for £20.541m with a minor overspend of £0.030m forecasted for 2022/23.
Page 3
Earmarked and One-off Reserves 2.3 Enterprise and Communities were given approval to earmark £16.859m of resources. In 2022/23, £13.953m of the reserve balance will be utilised. The remaining balance of £2.907m is required for the original purpose in future years. Appendix 4 details the individual Earmarked Reserves. 2022/23 Budget Savings & Growth 2.4.1 The Service uses a variety of information, records and processes to monitor achievement of its approved budget savings of £1.545m. As at Period 4, £0.797m (52%) of its approved savings are achievable during the year. The gap of £0.748m represents timing delay in office rationalisation savings (£0.473m), the previously approved reduction in school cleaning (£0.200m, offset with an Earmarked Reserve in 22/23) and delays in staffing savings (£0.078m). 2.4.2 In 2022/23, Enterprise and Communities were allocated £9.228m towards a number of one-off investments. Appendix 6 highlights in detail how this is being utilised across the Service. Management Actions 2.5 The Service will take a range of corrective management actions to ensure it delivers key operational targets. This includes curtailment of non essential spend and monitoring of vacancies. Change Management 2.6 The Service expects to use £0.171m of the Council’s Change Management Fund mainly to support the supply of new bins and materials within Environmental Assets. Costs within the Change Management Fund are not included in the Service outturn position. 3. Measures of success 3.1 The Service continues to operate within the approved budget resources. 4. Supporting documentation Appendix 1 Objective Analysis Appendix 2 Subjective Analysis Appendix 3 Payments to Other Bodies Analysis Appendix 4 Status of Earmarked Reserves Appendix 5 Challenging Savings Appendix 6 One-Off Investments Derek Brown Depute Chief Executive
Page 4
5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public Sector Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website? https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer- scotland-duty-impact-assessments Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.2 Financial impact Does the report contain any financial impacts? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with Financial Solutions? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? The Service continues to curtail non-essential expenditure and take management action to ensure at least a break-even position is achieved. 5.3 HR policy impact Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People and Organisational Development? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.4 Legal impact Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal and Democratic Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.5 Data protection impact Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal data? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data subject? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e- mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk Yes ☐ No ☐
Page 5
5.6 Technology / Digital impact Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG)? Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any environmental or carbon matters? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.8 Communications impact Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s communications activities? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.9 Risk impact Is there a risk impact? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts, highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g. Corporate or Service or Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed? All activities undertaken by the Council are subject to risk, and in acknowledging the Council’s approved Risk Management Strategy, Services managed these as part of their overall corporate and service planning processes. The current economic climate, in particular, has the potential to impact upon the Council’s ability to provide quality services within the approved budget levels. To reduce other financial risks, this report was prepared by service based Financial Solutions personnel in consultation with budget managers, in accordance with the Financial Regulations.
Page 6
No embedded text on this page.
Page 7
No embedded text on this page.
Page 8
No embedded text on this page.
Page 9
No embedded text on this page.
Page 10
No embedded text on this page.
Page 11
Appendix 6