Further Detail

High inflation and expectations for 2023-24 pay award has resulted in significant financial challenges for the organisation that require to be managed as part of the annual budget process.

The Head of Finance provides the routine finance report which outlines the year to date and forecast position for the revenue, capital, and reform budgets. A Period 1 financial monitoring report has been published to allow early scrutiny of the financial position considering the challenges.

Appendix A provides the detailed period 1 (P1) finance report.

Revenue

Although there are significant challenges, the year to date is revenue position at P1 is currently lower than budget (£0.2m) due to a mixture of timing and real variances. The main overspends relate to police officer core overtime, ill health pensions, police staff costs and under-recovery of income which are currently being fully offset by underspends in non-pay items. These movements will be monitored to identify “real” variances in the months ahead to ensure mitigating action can be taken as appropriate.

Significant savings built into the budget are being monitored throughout the year and potential threats on deliverability of those savings may crystallise in the Q1 forecast.

Capital

The year-to-date capital spend at P1 is under budget by £1.8m mainly due to our suppliers having logistic issues transporting the fleet to our premises.

The capital budget requires £32.1m of slippage to be managed down over the remaining part of the year.

Reform

The year-to-date reform spend at P1 is under budget by £0.3m.

The reform budget requires £11.4m of slippage to be managed down over the remaining part of the year.