The Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change submitted a report, in order to provide Council with an update on the Council's revenue financial performance for the financial year ended the 31st of March 2023.

She advised that in February 2022 Council approved a net revenue budget for the financial year 2022-2023 of £319.5m. Due to a technical adjustment in the final settlement the Council’s settlement was increased by £4,336 and this was reported to Council on 9th March 2022. 

The final outturn position for 2022/2023 was shown in Table 1 of the report. The overall outturn for the last financial year is a net underspend of £2.057m and this has been utilised to supplement earmarked reserves, primarily to supplement the cost of living fund for known pressures in the current financial year. The underspend is small in comparison to the overall net budget (0.6%) for 2022/2023 and therefore no transfers have been made to the council fund.

Within the outturn position directorate budgets provided a net overspend of £8.2 million whilst council wide budgets had a net underspend of £9.5 million. The out-turn position also takes into account the additional council tax income which was collected over budget during the financial year.

The 2022/23 financial year was a difficult one for the Council advised the Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change. The overall underspend on the council budget significantly masked underlying budget pressures which were reported during the year. The main financial pressures are in the service areas of social services and well-being, homelessness and home to school transport.

During 2022-2023 social services experienced significant pressures to meet statutory duties against a backdrop of an exponential increase in demand in children social care and an increase in the number of independent residential placements within children services, alongside pressures in learning disability and older persons residential placements. The council will need to give further consideration to the sustainable resource required specifically in children services to improve the quality of outcomes for children and families in Bridgend.

The council has seen a significant increase in the provision of temporary accommodation to support individuals who become homeless. It did receive grant funding from Welsh Government during the last financial year to support this service, however £2.5m of this was on a one off basis. This is another service that will require close financial monitoring during the current financial year.

In addition, the council had to address funding pressures during the last financial year in relation to pay and price costs that had not been anticipated earlier in the year. Elected members were briefed on this in year pressure in the Autumn of last year. These pressures are likely to continue into the current year and therefore money has been carried forward to meet those pressures.

The Welsh Government Hardship Fund which supported local authorities during the pandemic period ended on the 31st of March 2022. However local authorities did continue to administer four elements of this funding in the last financial  ...  view the full minutes text for item 144