West Northamptonshire Council’s latest Revenue Monitoring Report continues to show balanced position
Finance07 February 2022
West Northamptonshire Council’s latest Revenue Monitoring Report continues to show balanced position
West Northamptonshire Council has published its latest Revenue Monitoring Report.
The Council’s budget for 2021-22 is £326.6m and was approved on 23 February 2021 and includes £13.4m of savings proposals.
The report provides an assessment of the Council’s financial performance against its approved 2021-22 budget, incorporating key financial risks, issues and opportunities identified since 1st April 2021 for General Fund and the Housing Revenue Account (HRA).
The forecast outturn position for 2021-22 Period 9 is a balanced position, however it does assume the use of £2.9 million of the general contingency set aside in the budget.
The potential use of the contingency has increased by £0.5 million from the Period 7 position reported to Cabinet on 21st December.
Councillor Malcolm Longley, Cabinet Member for finance said: “Whilst there are inherent financial risks associated with the first year of a new organisation, the Council’s zero-based budget review, and financial monitoring programme has made good progress in assessing the robustness of budgets brought forward from legacy councils and assessing an estimate of the financial outturn.
"The Council continues to develop and embed its understanding of the inherited budgets, ensuring this intelligence is also used to inform the Period 9 revenue monitoring report alongside the Council’s 2022-23 final budget report.
"The budget included a general contingency of £5m to deal with any unexpected budget pressures that emerged in year. This was prudent given the levels of demand, the true cost of service delivery when we brought services together in a single new Council and because the impacts of stabilisation could not be fully known until the financial year commenced for the new organisation."
To view the Revenue Monitoring Report please visit Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday 15th February 2022.