Issue - meetings
REVENUE BUDGET OUTTURN 2025/26 (FINAL)
Meeting: 16/06/2026 - Cabinet (Item 14)
14 REVENUE BUDGET OUTTURN 2025/26 (FINAL) 
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REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR – RESOURCES
The purpose of this report is to inform Cabinet of the summary position on revenue income and expenditure at the end of the financial year 2025/26.
Additional documents:
Decision:
RESOLVED: That Cabinet:
(1) Noted this report.
(2) Approved a decrease of £1.385million in the 2025/26 net General Fund expenditure, as identified in section 8, to a total of £21.400million.
(3) Approved the changes to the 2026/27 General Fund budget, as identified in table 4 and paragraph 8.3, a total £651k increase in net expenditure
RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL: That it:
(1) Approves the net transfer from earmarked reserves, as identified in table 9, of £4.925million.
REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS:
(1) Members are able to monitor, make adjustments within the overall budgetary framework and request appropriate action of Services who do not meet the budget targets set as part of the Corporate Business Planning process.
(2) Changes to the Council’s balances are monitored and approved.
Minutes:
Audio recording – 1 hour 56 minutes 24 seconds
The Chair invited Councillor Vijaiya Poopalasingham, as Chair of the Finance, Audit and Risk (FAR) Committee, to present the referral on this item. Councillor Poopalasingham advised that:
· The report had been updated for Cabinet to reflect a reduction in the underspend on waste vehicles and the mobilisation of the waste contract, and although this had been funded from waste reserves, this shortfall had impacted the outturn position.
· Appendix A to the report had been considered, which gave a breakdown of variance in the year and the report gave the final outturn position.
· Previous carry forward amounts at paragraph 8.5 demonstrated that delivery was constrained by capacity, and there had been concern over significant variances resulting in a big carry forward to this financial year, as this might constrain capacity further.
· There had been a focus on overspends such as the £169K in relation to Churchgate as indicated on page 489 of the Agenda Reports Pack.
· Loss of commercial waste revenue was noted and mitigations measures for this were considered.
· Apart from variances, the Committee were happy with the outturn.
N.B. Councillor Amy Allen entered the Chamber at 21:29.
Councillor Ian Albert, as the Executive Member for Resources, presented the report entitled ‘Revenue Budget Outturn 2025-26 (Final)’ and advised that:
· The number of car parking tickets sold went up by 4.6%, and penalty charge notices had also increased in this period.
· They were happy to take on board comments from the FAR Committee.
· Table 4 in the report looked at budgets, variances and carry forwards and these were carefully reviewed with Directors and Executive Members, but there was an acknowledgment for more transparency on this.
· External expertise would be important for the Churchgate project, but there was recognition that they could be more transparent about the nature of the spend on this.
· There had been further underspend against the budget, but half of this would be carried forward to next year as detailed in Table 4.
· £1.884M would be carried forward as shown at paragraph 8.3 of the report.
· Carry forwards from previous years were displayed in paragraph 8.5 to show that there were multiple planned areas of spend.
· The target level of efficiencies had been met as detailed at paragraph 8.4.
· Performance against corporate financial health income measures was shown at paragraphs 8.6-8.8.
· The General Fund was £17.9M by year end with £1.9M proposed carry forward, which was healthier than the £14.4M net position forecast back in February 2025
· Appendix 1 summarised all the variances across the year.
In response to a question by Councillor Daniel Allen, the Director – Resources advised that the costs incurred from the Public Inquiry for the appeal for the application on Barkway Road, Royston would likely be included if they were incurred before the end of March, but this would be checked.
Councillor Ian Albert proposed the recommendations in the report, and this was seconded by Councillor Daniel Allen.
As part of the debate, Councillor ... view the full minutes text for item 14
Meeting: 10/06/2026 - Finance, Audit and Risk Committee (Item 9)
9 REVENUE BUDGET OUTTURN 2025/26 (FINAL) PDF 368 KB
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR – RESOURCES
The purpose of this report is to inform Cabinet of the summary position on revenue income and expenditure at the end of the financial year 2025/26.
Additional documents:
Decision:
RECOMMENDED TO CABINET: That Finance, Audit and Risk Committee comments on the assumptions and information contained within the report, in the context that Cabinet agrees that:
(1) That Cabinet note the report.
(2) That Cabinet approves a decreased of £1.385million in the 2025/26 net General Fund expenditure, as identified in section 8, to a total of £21.400million.
(3) That Cabinet approves the changes to the 2026/27 General Fund budget, as identified in table 4 and paragraph 8.3, a total £651k increase in net expenditure.
That Cabinet recommend to Full Council:
(4) That Council approves the net transfer from earmarked reserves, as identified in table 9, of £4.925million.
REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS:
(1) Members are able to monitor, make adjustments within the overall budgetary framework and request appropriate action of Services who do not meet the budget targets set as part of the Corporate Business Planning process.
(2) Changes to the Council’s balances are monitored and approved.
Minutes:
Audio recording – 1 hour 8 minutes 38 seconds
The Director – Resources presented the report entitled ‘Revenue Budget Outturn 2025/26’ and highlighted that:
· Revenue related to day-to-day spending and capital related to improving and purchasing assets.
· This report was an end of year position, with a slightly updated version being presented to Cabinet on 16 June 2026.
· These changes included a reduction to the underspend which related to the Waste and Street Cleansing Contract. The funding of the waste contract mobilisation costs had not been included in this version. These had been funded from the waste reserve, but there had also been a shortfall so it had impacted on the outturn budget position. The budgeted use of a revenue reserve to fund vehicle purchases had also not been included. Therefore, the result was also an impact on the net transfer from earmarked reserves.
· Table 4 of the report detailed the significant in year variances, and the reasons for these.
· The total budget to be carried forward to 2026/27 was £1.844million, as outlined in paragraph 8.3 of the report.
· The previous carry forward amounts were detailed at paragraph 8.5 of the report, which demonstrated whilst plans were in place to spend this allocation, it could not be delivered due to capacity and other limitations.
· All targeted efficiencies have been achieved, as detailed in paragraph 8.4 of the report.
· The performance against financial health indicators was outlined at paragraphs 8.6-8.8 of the report.
· There had been some updates to these, including the final number of car parking tickets sold, the number of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) issued and the final position of the General Fund balance.
· The explanation for total variances across the year was included at Appendix 1 of the report. The budget was reset for each in year quarterly review, but this report provided detail of original budget through to year end.
The following Members asked questions:
· Councillor Paul Ward
· Councillor Chris Lucas
· Councillor Elizabeth Dennis
· Councillor Ruth Brown
· Councillor Sarah Lucas
· Independent Member John Cannon
In response to questions, the Director – Resources advised that:
· The highlighted numbers included at Table 6 of the report were draft at time of writing, however the final figures had been included in the Cabinet report.
· The number of Garden Waste Collection subscribers had not changed and represented a 4.9% decrease on 2024/25.
· The Car Parking Fees final figures were 1,204,898 tickets sold, with an average price of £1.76. Whilst the average price was down 1.7% on 2024/25, the number of tickets sold had increased by 4.6%. This reflected more people parking in Council car parks for a shorter period of time.
· The final number of Parking PCNs issued was 18,991, which was a 14.4% increase on 2024/25 and was mainly down to the service being better staffed, therefore more Officers were available to issue PCNs.
· Underspend on projects was often due to staffing, which reflected the difficulty in recruiting to some posts. However, work was ongoing to address this and fill ... view the full minutes text for item 9