Agenda item

To monitor Westminster City Council’s financial position at Quarter 9 including revenue forecast outturn, revenue expenditure including key risks and opportunities, capital expenditure and HRA revenue and capital expenditure and reserves.

To monitor Quarter 2 performance results against the business plans.

Finance Report

6.1       The Committee received a monitoring report on the Finance and Business Plan. The Committee heard that, for the forecast to December 2021, the COVID-19 context was noted to have had a significant impact on variation against budget (£70m) owing to reduced economic activity in Westminster during the pandemic. Officers advised the Committee that Government grants and support had partially offset this, and that there was net variation of £10m-£20m.

6.2       Rikin Tailor summarised the financial report, highlighting Government grants and the amounts allocated to the Council, as well as giving overview of projects in which variances had occurred. The Committee heard that Council tax and business rates collections had both dropped to 6% and 9.95% respectively year-on-year by December 2020, with court restrictions noted as impeding collection efforts.

6.3       The Committee raised concerns about these drops and any resultant draws on reserves. The Committee further raised its additional concerns about future increase on statutory services as a result of longer-term impacts of COVID-19 also affecting reserves, and delays to capital programme potentially resulting in cost implications for the Council. The Committee was assured that the impacts of COVID-19 had been built in to budgets including for Adult Social Care, and that contingency of risk had been allocated. A floor of £50m was noted as the point at which plans would be made to rebuild reserves.

6.4       Key themes of the Committee’s discussion emerged around lowered income from key activities, including parking and commercial waste. This was compared to the wider national economic contraction of 11-12%, with recovery forecast to take two years. The Committee heard that the Council’s approach was aligned with this, with 5% and 6% growth projected for those years respectively.

6.5       Regarding the Capital Programme, the Committee discussed the delay to the Place Shaping Enterprise Programme, with Deirdra Armsby noting that a dispute with a sub-contractor was one cause of this delay, but that such programmes of work generally had been at slowed pace throughout Covid-19, owing to social distancing rules.

            Performance Report

6.6       The Committee received the performance report with a summary presentation from officers. The Chairman suggested the possibility of a separate meeting to discuss the substantial report and its methodology.

6.7       The Committee raised queries about ensuring sufficient resourcing to ensure compliance with the draft Building Safety Bill should it become law. The Committee was given assurances by officers (Deirdra Armsby) that this would be addressed as the Bill progressed through parliamentary committee stages and evolved. On the point of youth unemployment, Greg Ward explained some of the Council’s efforts to address this, including dedicating five Westminster Employment Service coaches to young people, creating 30 council roles for young people using the Government’s KickStart funding and signing up 30 additional employers to the KickStart scheme, creating Westminster Wheels to train young people as bicycle mechanics with an initial cohort of 25 trainees, and encouraging apprenticeships from the Council’s partners and suppliers. The Committee commended the initiatives and it was agreed that this topic should be explored in more depth separately.

6.8       The Committee also made queries relating to the City Survey, including: changes to methodology; the likelihood that face-to-face interviews during the pandemic may have skewed the sample to be unrepresentative; the proportion of residents who do not use the internet (8%) and the overlap with residents in highest need of Council services; and the lack of increase in electric car users proportionate to increased investment in infrastructure. Officers (Greg Ward and Sarah Newman) provided the Committee with information about how the Council was assisting some of the City’s digitally excluded by distributing laptops.

6.9       The Committee queried the desirability of benchmarking against peers rather than nationally, and noted that for the risk ratings, no indication of how severity was calculated had been given. The Committee also queried the increase in re-referrals to Children’s Services and received reassurances that this increase appeared to be related to the Covid-19 pandemic and reflected families seeking support. There was in addition a query around how targets were decided upon, with a target of 65% satisfaction for how the Council’s housing teams were performing, with anti-social behaviour being used as an example of a seemingly low target.

6.10     RESOLVED: that the Committee note the report.