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clarification was sought upon the fact that by balancing the position for this budget there would be a forecast additional contribution to next year’s budget; it was responded that in period 10 the forecast overspend was £526k

however at the start of the financial year there was a forecast overspend of £1.5m; after Christmas it was normally possible to make final adjustments to see the budget through until the end of March, with period 10 resulting in a balanced position;

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clarification was sought as to how in this period there was a forecast overspend of £526k, but somewhere in the region of £4.5m was put aside in a contingency budget to settle the budget for the next financial year? It was responded that in period 9 it was usual to have a searching review of the in-year budget and be able to make strategic decisions about what might be available – the figure of £1.7m was a carry forward to 2022/23 in order to help in balancing the shortfall. Identified resources of £2.8m were carried forward to deal with the budget position for 22/23;

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that the report should have referred to officers undertaking a review in order to balance the budget; it was responded that this would be taken into account moving forward;

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in the tracking decisions document there was an outstanding recommendation from July 2021 which referred to officers including more financial risk, overspend and mitigation in future reports; it was responded that this was still ongoing as a number of improvements including format changes were to be made to te Finance and Capital Monitoring report.