At the meeting of the Council’s Policy and Resources Committee on the 26 August, and with reference to Report CFO-14-21-GM, Members asked for further detail on the budget, expenditure and narrative in relation to Social Work Strategic Resources, Agencies and Other Bodies, 3rd Sector Grants.
For this area of Social Work the constituent Social Work Strategic Resources budget equates to £0.978m. This is largely constituted by payments or grants to 3rd Sector Voluntary Organisations where there is a budget of £0.912m. Expenditure is incurred by the Council, and recorded within the revenue monitoring report when those agreed 3rd Sector Voluntary Organisations invoice the Council for their work. This is then set against their budget and monitored accordingly.
At Period 3 actual expenditure was £0.065m with this now increasing to £0.518m at Period 5. Total annual expenditure is projected to be in the region of £1.007m. There are a number of organisations that have yet to invoice the Council and Officers are liaising with each to ensure that this administrative delay can be rectified and expenditure recorded. This action will ensure that funding can then be provided in line with agreed budgets and work sustained throughout the pandemic and recovery.
In previous years payments to these organisations has been in scope for savings to be allocated however, with many of these providing front line services in areas such as advocacy, mental health, addiction and advice, it remains challenging for the HSCP to achieve savings targets at this time. Where expenditure is anticipated to be in excess of budgets there is potential that this is as a result of additional funding being committed but yet to be allocated, covered through ‘offsetting’ saving elsewhere, recorded and met through HSCP as part of their mobilisation plan or allocated from HSCP or Council Covid reserves. This position will continue to be kept under review with a number of management actions being implemented to ensure resources can be prioritised at this challenging time.