Issue - meetings

Report of the Director – Finance and Corporate Services

The Senior Finance Business Partner presented the Q2 financial monitoring for 2025/26 and advised the Group that the Council continues to face significant financial challenges around rising costs, increased demand on Council services and the need to balance budgets while maintaining service quality.

The Group were asked to note the projected net revenue efficiency of £0.810m and the significant variances highlighted in Table 1 in the report. The variances are proposed to be earmarked for additional cost pressures and financial challenges which were provided in Appendix A of the report and mainly support LGR and simpler recycling.

The Assistant Director for Corporate Services presented the Q2 performance monitoring for 2025/26 of the Corporate Strategy and advised the Group that out of the 14 original strategic tasks 4 have been completed and the majority of the remaining tasks are at least 50% complete suggesting they are on target for completion by the end of the strategy period.

The Group were informed that 8 of the performance measures have not met target this quarter.

These are:

·       Cumulative number of fly tipping cases

·       Percentage of household was sent to reuse, recycling and composting

·       Cumulative number of successful homelessness prevention outcomes

·       Number of leisure centre users – public

·       Percentage usage of community facilities

·       Percentage of expected Councillors attending in-person training events this municipal year

·       Percentage of Councillors completing e-learning modules this municipal year

·       Income generated from community buildings

The Assistant Director for Corporate Services advised the Group that a midpoint review of the Corporate Strategy is underway and would be reported to Corporate Overview Group at its meeting in February 2026 and provides the opportunity to align the Corporate Strategy with Local Government Reorganisation.

The Group did not raise any questions or concerns with either the Finance or Performance reports for Q2.

The Chair thanked officers for their comprehensive reports, adding the Finance report would be picked up in more detail at the Governance Scrutiny Group in December.

It was RESOLVED that the Corporate Overview Group scrutinised:

a)    The projected revenue budget efficiency for the year of £0.810m and proposals to earmark this for cost pressures in Appendix A and paragraph 4.1

b)    The projected capital budget efficiencies of 31.466m including the budget changes in Appendix D

c)     The projected overspend on Special Expenses of £19k (paragraph 4.7)

d)    For performance exceptions, to judge whether further information is required