Issue - meetings

The Committee to consider the report from the Corporate Director Finance & Commercial

The committee recognised and thanked the Corporate Director Finance & Commercial for the provision of this report ahead of the introduction and scene setting provided before the councillor questions.

The discussion that followed covered off several areas such as;

·       The approach taken by the finance team in terms of challenge to budget holders around their forecasts

·       The business partner model taken by the finance team.

·       The role of rebasing and the approaches taken to address any areas of consistent overspend

·       The framework pricing approach

·       Financial controls applied to hold actual spend close to budgeted spend.

·       Large budget gaps and subsequent adaptations that are undertaken to mitigate those either at service, directorate or organisational level ahead of being rebalanced in the next year’s budget.

·       The role of controls-based testing.

·       The role and importance of professional judgement.

·       The inherent complexity of budget setting

·       The positive approach to scenario planning and early engagement at multiple levels to drive savings targets.

Recommendations

A policy or approach to considering rebasing a budget area following consistent and significant discrepancy between forecast and actual spend.

A policy or approach to unprecedented or exceptional budget changes and approach to how that can be managed/mitigated including the political implications of those changes/ decisions

Actions

The Corporate Director Finance & Commercial to bring back the date of the last SWAP audit of budget controls