Agenda item

The Chairman introduced the item and invited Anisa Darr, Director of Finance and Ben Jay, Assistant Director of Finance to present and summarise the report.

The Director of Finance informed the Committee that had Covid-19 not happened, the Council’s financial position for 19/20 would have ended in a favourable position and significantly better than had been anticipated at the last meeting with the ability to add to back to reserves, always recognising that reserve usage had been budgeted.

The Assistant Director of Finance raised the following key points:

-       That a key concern raised by Councillors had been the use of reserves and as of month 12 this had significantly improved since the last meeting, with a net contribution to reserves at the end of the year, always recognising the already budgeted use of reserves.

-       That there was some work to be done to improve forecasting for the end of the year, which would help aid planning, particularly around Covid.

The Committee requested that the original budget be included in the tables within the report, to allow comparisons against the revised budget figures. Officers agreed to incorporate this into future reports. (Action - Assistant Director of Finance)

The Committee queried whether the increased costs for residential care and the increasing length of stay had been factored into the budget for 2020/21. The Director of Finance confirmed just under £9m had been put into the adult’s budget in recognition of these increased costs, however these budgets were set pre-covid, so the Council would only know if the budget was adequate as the year evolved. However, she confirmed that a month 2 detailed exercise was currently taking place.

Councillor Mittra asked for the final cost figure for the repair of the Finchley Lido, as well as the proposed opening date. Officers explained that it was not detailed within the report as capital costs were funded by the asset maintenance fund. The Chairman suggested that officers provided Councillor Mittra with a link to the environment committee paper on the Finchley Lido and that anything not covered in the paper be picked up and provided by officers outside of the meeting. (Action – AD Finance)

The Committee requested the latest information on the school balances and in-year deficits be circulated to Members. The Director of Finance agreed that this would be included in the next set of monitoring reports that are brought to committee. (Action-  Director of Finance)

As part of the discussion in relation to the HRA, the Chairman requested a report be brought to the committee providing a detailed explanation on the movement between month 10 and 12 and where the overspend occurred, as well as plans that had been put in place to prevent the problem re-occurring in the future. The Chairman asked that the report include a month by month trend analysis of last year and this year. The Director of Finance explained that a piece of work was taking place between all relevant officers and the Barnet Group to map all processes and make sure there were no gaps between the different teams. She agreed to bring a report back to the committee which would outline the revised arrangements and how it would be made more robust going forward. (Action- Director of Finance).

The Committee queried the £2.1m borrowing for Brent Cross, The Director of Finance agreed to confirm the position and circulate to the members. (Action – director of Finance) [Members were later informed that this related to land acquisitions.]

The Committee also queried the slippage in IT projects for Adults and Health and were concerned whether  the data that was being used to provide information to government  wasreliable. The Chairman informed the Committee that a report on Mosaic was due to be reported to the Adults and Safeguarding Committee, however due to resource implications arising from Covid-19, this had been delayed. The Assistant Director of Finance confirmed that Mosaic was performing well, however the report would outline and address specific concerns. He also explained that whilst the data was not completely up to date, other financial systems were used to check the data was as accurate as possible and benchmarking was used to ensure there was a sense check of the cost element.

The Committee raised concerns about the same debtors being identified within multiple reports brought to the Committee, Freemantle Trust, Comer Homes and the NHS. The Director of Finance explained that the issues regarding Freemantle were ongoing and that the Council were currently awaiting further comment from legal. Regarding Comer Homes, she said mediation had been unsuccessful, the council was waiting for courts to re-open to progress further. The Director said that Barnet CCG had combined to become NCL CCG from the 1^st April which had contributed to the delay in recovering the debt, as well as the NHS and care sectors being particularly affected by Covid-19, however dialogue with the new team had started and she was hopeful that resolution would progress quickly.

Following discussion of the item, the Chairman moved to vote on the recommendations outlined in the report.

It was unanimously RESOLVED that:

The Committee noted the overall financial outturn at the end of 2019/20 for General Fund services, Housing (HRA), Schools (DSG) and capital budgets.

The Committee noted the overall use of reserves reflected in the report.