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Council Monitoring Report - Q1 2025/26

Committee report · Cabinet · Wed 24 Sep 2025 · East Sussex County Council

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What it recommends

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What the meeting decided

The minutes record: Agreed. “RESOLVED to: 1) note the latest monitoring position for the Council; and 2) approve the amendment of the outturn for the unclassified roads measure set out in paragraph 2.2 of the report. Reasons 18.3 The report sets out the Council’s position and year-end projections for the Council Plan targets, Revenue Budget, Capital Programme, and Savings Plan, together with Risks at the end of June 2025.” minutes ↗

In plain English

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Recommended · This went to the meeting on Wed 24 Sep 2025. What was decided is in that meeting's minutes.

The report forecasts a £25.8m overspend on the 2025/26 revenue budget, with the largest pressures in Children's Services, forecast to overspend by £16.7m, and Adult Social Care, forecast to overspend by £9.0m. p10p12p19

It also forecasts a £10.8m underspend on centrally held budgets, and an unplanned draw from reserves of £14.9m in 2025/26, in addition to the planned £11.4m draw already built into the budget. p22p26

The Capital Programme is projected to spend £84.8m in 2025/26 after applying a slippage risk factor, against a budget of £103.0m. p30

2 further sentences of this summary were held back by verification and are not shown. We only publish claims that survived checking against the cited passages.

Show the 6 passages this is based on
  • p102.2 It is recommended that the outturn of 31% for the unclassified roads measure is replaced with a null outturn (represented as ‘not available’ in the Council Plan) for the 2024/25 year due to identified data quality issues. Further information is provided in Appendix 6. 3. Overview of Council Plan 2025/26 outturns and strategic risks 3.1 The Council Plan 2025/26 and the Portfolio Plans 2025/26 – 2027/28 have been updated with available 2024/25 outturns and final performance measure targets. All plans are published on the Council’s website. The Corporate Summary (Appendix 1) contains a forecast of performance against targets. 3.2 The Strategic Risk Register, Appendix 8, was reviewed and updated to reflect the Council’s risk profile. Risk 12 (Cyber Attack), Risk 15 (Climate), Risk 9 (Workforce) and Risk 6 (Local Economic Growth) have updated risk definitions and risk controls. Risk 22 (Oracle), Risk 4 (Health), Risk 5 (Reconciling Policy, Performance and Resources), Risk 20 (Placements for Children and Young People in Our Care), Risk 1 (Roads), and Risk 18 (Data Breach) have updated risk controls. 4. Budget Outturn 4.1 The detailed revenue projections for each department are set out in the relevant appendices which show a projected overspend of £25.8m by 31 March 2026. All departments other than Governance Services are overspending, reflecting the difficult financial situation that the Council, along with many others, face. 4.2 The 2025/26 budget, set in February 2025, included a number of modelled assumptions, particularly in demand-led social care services, with regard to the number of people who would access our services plus the costs of the delivery of the services required to meet their assessed needs. Whilst additional budget was provided for growth in demand, demographic changes and inflationary pressures, departments are reporting below how in a number in service areas demand is now modelled to exceed the assumptions made in the latter part of 2024.
  • p12· Children’s Services (CSD) is forecast to overspend by £16.7m; the main financial pressure continues to come from the statutory demand-driven areas of Looked After Children (LAC), Child Protection, and Home to School Transport. LAC placements remain the largest financial pressure within Children’s Services, with overspends forecast on agency residential and secure placements, due in part to the volume of high-need placements and increased cost of high-cost placements.
  • p19· The forecast overspend for Adult Social Care is £9.0m which largely relates to the Independent Sector, where the overspend is forecast to be £8.7m. This is due to an increase in demand and more people being supported, however it should be noted that support is being provided at a lower average cost than previous years, because the service is managing the market, being prudent with packages of support and reviewing more people. There is an overspend in Directly Provided Services of £0.316m due to staffing cost pressures, increasing costs and demand for equipment services to support people in their homes and legal fees.
  • p224.4 Within Centrally Held Budgets (CHB), including Treasury Management (TM), and corporate funding there is a forecast underspend of £10.8m, which includes the general contingency:
  • p264.5 The net impact of the above is an unplanned draw from reserves of £14.9m in 2025/26. This is in addition to the planned £11.4m draw to present a balanced position in setting the 2025/26 budget. Use of the Capital reserve has the potential to increase the requirement to borrow, leading into increased costs in the future; use of Collection Fund surplus and Insurance and Local Government Reorganisation Reserves will likely hinder the Council’s management of future risk and transformation. The Council’s strategic reserves are £16.5m at 1 April 2025 - for comparison, the latest published budget gap after likely funding scenarios for 2026/27 is £24.6m. Any reduction in reserves reduces the flexibility available in dealing with the challenge of addressing next year’s projected deficit and setting a balanced budget, without having to seek further savings or exceptional financial support. To address the projected in-year overspend and reduce the required draw from reserves, the Council continues with several actions introduced last year, including:
  • p304.7 The Capital Programme net expenditure for the year is projected to be £95.6m against a budget of £103.0m. A slippage risk factor has been applied to the capital programme to reflect likely slippage based on a risk assessment of historic levels of actual expenditure and slippage at a project/programme level. The risk factor will be held at a corporate level to enable services / project managers to manage project budgets at a local level, whilst ensuring greater robustness to the planning and monitoring process at a corporate level. The net forecast expenditure after applying this risk factor is £84.8m.

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