Issue - meetings

To consider the report.

The senior accountant introduced the report which provided Board Members with an update in relation to the usage of the ringfenced public health budget.

Officers responded to Board Members’ comments and requests for clarification, details included:

• The ring-fenced public health reserve had already been allocated and a future report would detail where that spend had gone. This report requested that the principle be agreed, but to come back with the detail, which would be part of the next finance report.
• The fact that any underspend within a financial year went into a ring-fenced reserve meant that it could only be spent on public health matters and not spent elsewhere.
• There would always be a degree of flexibility in the movement of the budget. It had been challenging to forecast expenditure over previous years due to covid and additional grants that are allocated. The first forecast for this year showed that there may be an overspend this year, although this would be managed carefully and was likely to change.
• The 60:40 split detailed in recommendations 2 and 3 was the same split that had been previously used and the principle had been agreed for this financial year too, with the monitoring officers at both BCP Council and Dorset Council also supporting this methodology.

RESOLVED

That the Board:

(i)            note the 2022/23 shared service out turn of £375k underspend, the £394k underspend on the BCP retained grant, and the break-even position for the DC retained grant in 22/23;

(ii)          agree the proposed 60:40 split of the 23/24 uplift, with 60% going to the shared service;

(iii)          agree the proposed application of the 23/24 uplift within the shared service and;

(iv)         note the position for the grant kept by each council in 23/244) note plans for the use of ring-fenced public health reserves over the next three years, in line with principles agreed at the November 2022 Board.