Purpose

This report provides details for Cabinet on the county council's 2021/22 revenue and capital outturn position.

The 2021/22 revenue position at the end of the year is net expenditure of £851.490m, against an approved budget of £881.413m, which represents an in-year underspend of £29.923m or 3.39% of the revenue budget.

This has been another exceptional year due to the pandemic, with a significant number of different grants received from the government at various points through the year to support additional activity and costs to support local communities as well as reduced service income in some areas and delayed savings delivery. The grants relate to one off non-recurrent funding with the majority expected to have been spent by 31 March 2022 or specified earlier points. One Public Health COVID-19 grant, the Contain Outbreak Management Fund, is being carried forward into 2022/23 to support any additional work on containing any future outbreaks and any eligible expenditure which is required in the new financial year. It is recognised that whilst general restrictions due to the pandemic have now been relaxed for the general public, the impact of COVID-19, and the further variants such as Omicron, will continue to have an effect on the demand for services, particularly social care.  We are anticipating some ongoing impacts on the medium-term financial strategy from this as well as the from the general cost of living pressures and the fair cost of adult social care review requirements from central government. 

A further significant factor is in relation to savings delivery, as in the region of c£15m of agreed 2021/22 savings must now be delivered in 2022/23, in addition to savings that have already been agreed to be delivered in future years as part of their agreed profile, with the total value of agreed savings to be delivered by 2024/25 being c£41m.

The agreed capital delivery programme for 2021/22 totalled £170.563m with a final outturn position of £164.124m, a variance against planned delivery in the year of £6.439m.

Decision

The Cabinet approved the recommendation(s) as set out in the report.