Issue - meetings

The Section 151 Officer delivered a presentation to Members with figures for Revised Budgets 2020/21. This included:

1) General Fund

2) From Original to Current – Q1 and Q2 (savings differences)

3) From Current to Revised Budgets

4) COVID-19 Financial Impact

5) Housing Revenue Account

6) Capital Programme

7) Reserves and Balances

The Section 151 Officer summarised the most important parts of the Revised Budgets, which was that:

1) The Coronavirus pandemic is having a detrimental effect on the Council’s 2020/21 general fund budget.

2) For 2020/21 the revised budget estimate for the housing revenue account is a surplus, this will be transferred to the HRA Development Reserve.

3) Any underspend on general fund will be transferred to the NNDR Growth Protection Reserve.

4) The level of reserves is considered to be adequate to fund planned expenditure and potential issues/risks that we face.

5) The capital programme for 2020/21 is fully financed and does not include any borrowing where MRP is payable.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources spoke on the presentation and stated that the Council would have to be careful and prudent in the face of reduced income. He also noted that part of the Government’s COVID-19 grant to the Council would go out to Parish Councils because they had been hit hard by the pandemic.

Councillor Janet Tait asked what was in place for businesses struggling because of the pandemic. The Section 151 Officer informed her that a scheme was in place called Local Restrictions Support Grant to help businesses, and details on how to apply were on the Council website. She added that two other discretionary schemes to support businesses would be set up soon.

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources stated that in addition to these grant schemes, there was also a scheme to give COVID-19 self-isolators £500 as encouragement to not go into the workplace. Council officers had also been as supportive as possible in collecting rents from businesses with their lockdown difficulties in mind.

Councillor Tricia Clough referred to mention in the Budget Monitoring Quarter 2 report earlier in the agenda of a meeting taking place in October or November 2020 about spending of Section 106 money before the deadline to spend it, and asked if this meeting had now occurred. The Section 151 Officer assured her that this meeting had happened recently and the officers present were reminded of their individual deadlines to spend Section 106 funds.

Councillor David Dixon referred to the mention in the presentation of grants to Parish Councils and asked if any caveats would be attached to these.  The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources responded that the Parish Councils had been told that the funding was to keep the Parish Councils running, and they could spend it on all Parish Council duties.

Councillor Maxine Dixon referred to the mention of £500 to business workers self-isolating and asked for more detail on this. The Section 151 Officer explained that it was a scheme being run for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16