The committee discussed the council's financial performance in the last financial year. They also discussed a number of their key performance indicators, and their work plan for the next financial year.

Council Finances

The committee received a report on the final revenue budget outturn for 2023/24 (Corporate Scrutiny Committee - Revenue Outturn Period 11).

The report showed an underspend of £4.115m against the revised budget. This was driven by higher than expected income from a number of sources, including council tax and business rates.

Some councillors expressed concern about the underspend, arguing that it suggested the council had been too cautious in its budgeting.

We seem to be underspending consistently across a lot of our budgets. Are we being too cautious? Should we be more ambitious in our spending plans?

However, officers noted that the underspend was partly due to a number of one-off factors, such as the receipt of government grants. They also said that the council needed to be mindful of the challenging economic outlook.

Clearly there are a number of variables in play that are very hard to predict in the current economic climate.

Key Performance Indicators

The committee discussed the council's performance against its key performance indicators (KPIs). The report showed that the council was performing well against most of its KPIs (Corporate Scrutiny Key Performance Indicator Report P11 2023-24).

However, there were a small number of areas where performance was not meeting targets, such as the speed of processing planning applications.

Scrutiny Work Plan

The committee discussed their work plan for 2024/25 (Corporate Scrutiny Work Plan 2024-25).

The plan included a number of items, including:

• A review of the council's waste management strategy
• A review of the council's housing strategy
• A review of the council's approach to climate change

The committee agreed to the work plan.