Issue - meetings

Report attached for comments to be made to Cabinet.

The Board noted that the report had been submitted to it for scrutiny but would not in fact be presented to Cabinet.

Officers advised that the overall financial position of the Council had not changed markedly since the last report to the Board. There would year end expenditure of £11.8m on Covid-19 issues that was outside of the original budget. There was also an income loss of £12m and £6.8m of savings that could not be achieved due to the redeployment of staff etc.

Government funding of £16m had been received and a further tranche of funding had recently been announced although it was uncertain at this stage what Havering’s allocation would be. The overall position was that the Council was approximately £14m overspent. General reserves totalled £13.6m so there would be a need to take some funding from allocated reserves. The Chief Operating Officer felt therefore that this was a very challenging and unprecedented position.

Expenditure had been mainly on areas such as PPE, the temporary mortuary and food distribution with the highest additional amount being spent on adult social care. Income losses were due to the non-charging of parking fees and the lack of use of services such as school transport and sports centres.

Officers emphasised that they had no option but to follow the rules and guidelines laid down by central government. The Leader of the Council was working with London Councils on Covid issues but it was often not possible to impact government policy.

There was a backlog of healthcare placements that it was hoped to clear by December 2020. The cost of placements until that date would be reimbursed by the Department of Health. Some test and trace work was already being done by the Council which would now be responsible for contacting hard to reach cases. Funding for outbreak management had been received from central government. There would be a contact centre located in Havering but it was  uncertain how large this would need to be. The level of grant funding available for this work was also currently uncertain.

It was clarified that debts for service charge income would not be written off unless there was no alternative. It was hoped more debts could be collected once the courts had reopened.

A total of around £800k would need to be taken from the earmarked and it was accepted that it would difficult to attain the general reserve target of £20m. This would be addressed in the next budget process. All accruals and liabilities had been adjusted for via the budget monitoring process. It was uncertain at this stage what level of future loss of income could be reimbursed from central government. The financial settlement to local government for next year would not be announced until shortly before Christmas.

The Board noted the report.