The comments of the Director of Finance & Corporate Services are incorporated throughout the body of the report.

The Council is carrying a significant level of financial risk which has increased due a variety of factors as set out in detail throughout this report. The Council continued the early financial planning cycle  to ensure it has in place a robust and sustainable plan to deliver a balanced budget for 2026/27.

To manage the financial risk, Officers are continuing with the steps taken in 2024/25, specifically:

• continuing to review rigorously all income and expenditure budget lines
• continue through the Corporate Leadership Team to control recruitment and agency staff expenditure
• continue to review and refresh the planning assumptions used as part of the Service Review work
• reviewing all commissioned contracts to understand if and how services can be provided in a different more efficient way or through an alternative delivery approach
• enhancing the budget management arrangements within the Council to ensure more timely reporting and accountability by budget managers.
• review all income generating arrangements currently conducted by the Council to ensure they continue to meet their income targets in the short to medium term

Mobilise a transformation programme and develop proposals for transformational change that will deliver savings and where possible, enhance or maintain service delivery. In addition, the Council is deploying a number of complimentary approaches such as Service Reviews and Technical Reviews that when combined in total should ensure there are sufficient options to set a balanced budget for 2026/27.

The Resources Board has now been created with core members being Cabinet Member for Resources, Chief Executive, Director of Finance & Corporate Services and attendees being Cabinet Members that are not included in Core Membership, Corporate Directors and the Deputy Director of Finance & Property. This now replaces what the Economy, Efficiency, and Effectiveness Board was reviewing, The spend panel has now been replaced with the Spend approval process using new technology to be more efficient. This an enhancement to the financial controls already in place.

The council will continue to both directly and indirectly lobby both the Treasury and MHCLG on funding for Bexley and its residents to ensure it receives fair and proportionate funding without an overreliance being placed on Council Tax and Precepting powers.