Introduction from Caroline Holland, Director of Finance and Corporate Services

Dear Reader,

I am pleased to present the statement of accounts for the London Borough of Bexley for the financial year 2022/23.

My narrative report includes the financial statements with an overall explanation of the Council’s financial position during 2022/23 and commentary on the medium-term picture. It also includes information about the operation of the Council and the major influences affecting the accounts. In addition, it includes information on service and financial performance over the financial year ending 31 March 2023. All this information is given with the aim of providing stakeholders and interested parties assurance as to the Council’s financial standing and the care taken to account for public money.

Performance overview 2022/23

Background

Bexley is all about its residents - who make the borough so enterprising, diverse and full of character. Our 250,000 residents are proud of their well-located and green borough, and the council is ambitious for them, working to grow the borough for the benefit of residents today and into the future.

A new corporate strategy was adopted in 2022/23 - our Bexley Plan ‘Making Bexley Even Better’. This plan is how we share our vision for Bexley and our commitments to residents in delivering that vision. The Bexley Plan is linked to our Medium-Term Financial Strategy (which explains how we will resource and fund the vision and commitments).

• Find out more about our Bexley Plan

In our new Bexley Plan we have three priorities and 15 outcomes:

Priority theme 1: Aspiration for our residents

Outcome 1 - Children and young people have the best start in life 
Outcome 2 - Good schools and achievement for all our pupils 
Outcome 3 - Lifelong learning helps people reach their potential and access good jobs 
Outcome 4 - Happy, healthy and resilient lives 
Outcome 5 - Your life, your choice - working together towards the life you want 

Priority theme 2: Ambition for our Borough

Outcome 6 - Good growth supported by better transport 
Outcome 7 - Cleaner and greener borough 
Outcome 8 - Local jobs and businesses in a thriving local economy 
Outcome 9 - People and communities feel safe and inclusive 
Outcome 10 - Quality, affordable homes for every stage of life 

Priority theme 3: An Efficient and Effective Council

Outcome 11 - Lobbying for Bexley and on the side of our residents 
Outcome 12 - Taxpayers’ money is spent wisely and well 
Outcome 13 - Customers at the heart of what we do 
Outcome 14 - Rigorous procurement and contract management to get the best services 
Outcome 15 - Attract, retain and develop an efficient, diverse and inclusive workforce

Our approach to delivering our ‘Bexley Plan’

We have a two-fold approach to ensuring we deliver our Bexley Plan.

Our Bexley Plan now includes an action plan, and we monitor delivery of the projects and activity within it to make sure we remain focused on our priorities. Each year of activity is part of our bigger vision for Bexley, and each year we make further progress towards making Bexley even better. This was our first year delivering against a four-year plan.

We also continue to monitor an agreed set of performance indicators that relate to our Bexley Plan outcomes. In 2022/23 we monitored over 110 of these corporate performance indicators. Some of the performance indicators are only the responsibility of the Council but many of them are shared and achieved in partnership with colleagues across the public sector.

We share and update our performance and achievements regularly at Public Cabinet, as it’s important to be open about how we’re doing. We provide numerical data and written explanations to make the information clear and accessible. We are a learning organisation, and our performance this year helps us plan and adapt for next year, supporting the council to agree evidenced ways to improve performance.

It’s important to understand and show the link between our performance, our resources and our financial outturn so that we are open about any risks or challenges in achieving our vision and commitments. We produce an integrated performance report to make sure that our performance indicators help us manage risk, manage our finances, and provide good governance.

Our overall performance in 2022/23

We’ve achieved a great deal this year, in a difficult context, as inflation has increased our costs, cost of living pressures have increased the levels of need for some residents and some of our services are still grappling with the impact of the Covid19 pandemic. Some of our performance indicators aren’t meeting the target we aimed for, but we are often performing well compared with other authorities. Key examples of which are detailed below by Bexley Plan priority.

Priority theme 1: Aspiration for our residents

We’re particularly proud that we retained our ‘outstanding’ rating for our Children’s Services for the second time in a row - making Bexley the second local authority in the country to have achieved this under the current Ofsted framework, and the first London borough to have achieved this grade for a second consecutive time.

We secured just under £30m as part of a ‘safety valve agreement’ with the Department for Education to improve our local offer for young people with special educational needs and / or disabilities (SEND) and to bring the Council’s High Needs budget into balance. An additional £9.5m of capital funding has been secured to expand existing special school provision.

We continue to perform above the national average for completion of Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs) with 89.4% being completed within the 20-week deadline (national average is 59.9%). We experienced a slight drop in our timeliness performance this year, in the face of increasing numbers of children being referred.

The proportion of adults with learning disabilities who live in their own home or with their family remains high as does the proportion of clients receiving self-directed support which enables more flexibility and choice. Around 77% of long-term adult social care clients receive support in the community.

We received £1.7m government funding from the Adult Social Discharge Fund and worked with partners to ensure people were appropriately supported to be discharged, helping to relieve pressure on our local hospitals. Provisional data shows 89.9% of people aged 65+ were still at home 91 days after discharge from hospital into reablement or rehabilitation services – up from 85.1% last year.

We have been successful in increasing the proportion of new adult clients who received short term services (like reablement) and subsequently had no further need for services – up from 56.6% last year to 69.4%. This points to improved recovery and independence.

Library usage has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels but there has been a steady increase in usage this year, By the end of this year, we saw the highest number of visits to our libraries since Covid restrictions were lifted.

Priority theme 2: Ambition for our borough

We adopted our new Local Plan which sets our vision and framework for future development in the borough. It’s our key planning policy document and a statutory requirement. The Local Plan is informed by engagement with communities, partners, infrastructure providers and investors and has been subject to examination by independent Planning Inspectors on behalf of the Secretary of State.

The proportion of our planning decisions made within timescales improved since last year, increasing to 94.4% for the end of 2022/23 compared with 83% last year. This is well above the Government benchmark of 70% and a return to our previous performance.

The Nest Community building and library in Thamesmead and a new library in Sidcup opened this year. Both supporting the regeneration plans of the Council.

Our waste collection and recycling service has experienced a series of challenges this year including strike action and some severe weather this winter. There’s been a decrease in the volume of household waste and the rate of missed bins per 100,000 collections has reduced to 136.5 which whilst still too high is moving in the right direction.

Seven weeks of industrial action in 2021 impacted our recycling figures and for the first time in 17 years Bexley does not hold the number one spot for recycling in London. We are currently rated 5th with rates that remain higher than national average. However, the situation is disappointing, and we are working hard to improve it. We launched several new schemes this year to encourage further recycling including TRAID, our new household textile recycling collection.

The number of households in Temporary Accommodation (TA) has continued to reduce and is now below 670 - a 30% reduction on last year. Some new build homes contributed to an increase in Housing Association lets this year, and private renting offers gave more homes to residents this year than last. However, the situation for emergency accommodation is increasingly challenging as a number of government agencies and other local authorities seek to make use of a similar and reducing pool of properties.

The number of young people entering the criminal justice system and youth re-offending rates remain low. Crime levels have also remained lower than pre-pandemic figures. The rate of domestic abuse remains higher than it was pre-pandemic but is lower than last year. Children’s social care referrals and open cases have increased by 8% compared with last year, with the main reasons cited as parental mental health, domestic abuse, and relationship breakdown.

Priority theme 3: An Efficient and Effective Council

This year’s Budget was the first to be shaped by our new corporate strategy, ‘Making Bexley Even Better: Our Bexley Plan 2022/26.’

To balance our budget in this difficult financial climate, we undertook a series of reviews to ensure we were operating efficiently especially within high cost and high demand services. For example, we reviewed how we provide and fund services such as children’s placements, SEN Transport, Temporary Accommodation, Waste, Highways and Parking.

Collection of business rates has continued to improve this year and is higher now than last year but is yet to return to pre pandemic levels. The council tax collection rate was 0.17% lower than our target and lower than the collection rate prior to the pandemic and cost of living challenge. The number of Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) working age claimants has steadily reduced this year but is still higher than pre pandemic levels. We have also improved our focus on debt recovery, and the percentage of debts collected in 90 days by value has increased to 95%.

We have focused on improving our customer service this year, whether residents contact us by telephone, face to face or through our website. Traffic to our website continues to grow and was 20% higher in March 2023 compared to the previous year. Data about volumes of calls and web page hits was used to identify areas for focus.

We received a larger number of complaints this year (762). However despite the larger volume of complaints we have improved the proportion of complaints receiving replies within timescales, but there is still work to do to meet our timeliness targets.

Our cost-of-living work continues to recognise that people will be affected in different ways and some groups (including the elderly, disabled and carers) are likely to be more vulnerable. We are closely monitoring cost of living data and have worked closely with the voluntary and community sector to distribute Household Support Funding, signpost residents to information and support service. We have also had positive uptake of our weekly Energy Café at the Central Library.

The economic environment has contributed to difficulties in recruiting and retaining the staff we need to deliver our services. We have developed various responses to this challenge including apprenticeship schemes in Finance and Business Admin and a Management trainee scheme aimed at local graduates. We are updating our workforce plans for each directorate.

2022/23: A Financial Overview

The Budget and Council Tax for 2022/23 was set by Full Council in March 2022 in the context of the Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy covering the period 2022/23 to 2025/26. The budget set out the detailed financial plans for the Council in its Revenue and Capital budgets for the financial year.

The Council has faced continued financial pressures during the year. The road to recovery following the pandemic was further impacted by global inflationary pressures, which pushed UK inflation to levels not seen in a generation. Inflation rose to a high of 11.10% in October 2022, reducing to 10.10% in March 2023. The high rate of inflation was driven by:

• Higher energy prices - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to more large increases in the price of gas. Since May 2022, the price of gas has doubled;
• Demand and supply - During the COVID pandemic demand for goods increased but the supply chain was not able to provide the supply. This has led to higher prices - particularly goods imported from abroad; and
• Employment - There are more job vacancies than there are people to fill them, as fewer people are seeking work following the pandemic. This means that employers are having to offer higher wages to attract job applicants.

There have been additional pressures in children’s and adult social care, waste collection services, Parking and Leisure services, domestic abuse and cemeteries and crematorium.

In addition to coronavirus and the global economy, uncertainty surrounding the future of local government funding, reforms to business rates and long-term sustainable funding for adult social care continue to have an effect on our medium-term financial planning. We are lobbying the Government on these matters and make frequent representations to Ministers as we seek to influence future decision-making.

The Council also faces financial pressures from contract inflation and the challenges posed by the changing needs of our residents and growth in some demand-led key frontline services. The Council set its budget in order to respond to these financial challenges while delivering the quality services our residents need and rely upon. The afore mentioned global economic situation is only adding to these financial pressures.

The focus of the Council in order to deliver a balanced budget has continued to be on efficiency and transformation opportunities in order to ensure we deliver the services local people need and ensure the safety of our vulnerable residents.

In 2022/23 the Council had a General Fund Budget of £188.653m. The Council Tax requirement for the borough was £125.346m. The remaining income coming from government grants and Non-Domestic Rates. Additional funding of £5.984m was included in the budget to support growth. However, funding requirements over and above this have occurred in the 2022/23 year, resulting in the final General Fund outturn of £192.032m, which is an overspend of £3.379m.

Group accounts

The Council is required to produce group accounts if the council has a controlling interest over any other company or entity. This is the third year the council has produced group accounts to include Bexley Co Ltd.

BexleyCo has been established with the intention being that it is used as a vehicle to drive development in the borough while generating a profit in the long-term that is planned to be ploughed back into Bexley to keep the quality of services residents deserve. The Council has ambitious plans, and each project is evaluated and business cases approved where they meet these plans.

BexleyCo’s ten-year target is to:

• deliver 1,200 new homes for sale, affordable and market rent to local people with the ambition to increase to provide more new homes;
• support the local economy through jobs, training opportunities and both direct and indirect investment;
• stimulate good growth and regeneration through an exemplar approach to the design, marketing, sale and management of our new homes;
• generate significant financial returns for our Shareholders thereby helping to alleviate growing budgetary pressures; and
• facilitate new communities that are socially successful and sustainable over the long term through design, construction, sales, marketing and estate management strategies.

Revenue outturn

The Statement of Accounts sets out the Council’s spending and financing in line with accounting and statutory requirements.

The table below provides a summary of the outturn position by Directorate. This leaves a net outturn position for service budgets of a £11.052m overspend. Once corporate budgets and funding have been taken into account, there is a resulting overspend of £3.379m. The overspend has been funded from the Financial Planning reserve.

The main financial pressures of 2022/23 were to some extent, impacted by the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. While there has been some recovery, this has been further exacerbated by high interest rates and inflation and the cost of living crises.

Market conditions have been a key factor affecting Children’s services with major variations reported throughout the year for looked after children, primarily increasing unit costs for residential placements and additional demand for SEN transport. There was a need for additional staffing to respond to the increase in demand, resulting in significant overspends.

The 2022/23 year continued to see changing patterns of expenditure and income within Adult Social Care. As with 2021/22, there was additional expenditure on community-based and older people care home services with both numbers and unit costs increasing. There were also increases in the unit costs for Residential and Nursing and direct payments.

The Housing Service was successfully able to mitigate the demand pressures on temporary accommodation in 2022/23 through rigorous management of the service and utilising the Private Rented Sector and other suitable alternatives. This will be particularly difficult to maintain going forward due to the changing market conditions and the Home Office programme for decanting from London hotels.

Parking service income continued to be impacted by the pandemic with only slow signs of recovery in certain areas. Income from on and off-Street parking was below pre-pandemic levels and whilst too early to define may well be a sign of permanently changing patterns of behaviour.

Chargeable Leisure services have been slowly recovering throughout the year. The outlook is positive, with year on year reductions in the overspend predicted.

Waste Services have had another challenging year, with consumer behaviour taking time to return to what it was pre-pandemic. Changing patterns as a result of an increase in working from home have impacted residual waste levels, compounded by the impacts of industrial action in 2021/22 and 2022/23. Income relating to recycled paper has reduced due to low world-wide demand and high energy costs.

Finance and Property saw a loss of income from commercial rent directly related to the pandemic and high energy costs as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Capital outturn

During the year, the Council’s capital outlay was £28.448m against a revised budget of £34.348m, with an aggregate slippage of £5.900m. A robust review will also take place to ensure that all schemes are required in future years.

The variances from budget relate to the profiling of expenditure as opposed to the cancelling of projects. The most significant of which were the schools SEN schemes, and Erith and Sidcup regeneration projects.

Bexley’s balance sheet

The Council maintained a strong balance sheet, with £932.972m of Long Term Assets as at 31 March 2023 and Current Assets of £109.066m, Current Liabilities of £75.745m, and Long Term Liabilities of £410.143m. Furthermore, the Council has usable reserves of £76.740m.

Reserve levels

As the Section 151 officer, I have also taken account of the reserve levels and I have advised that a prudent level of General Fund reserves is at least £14m. This level is required to ensure there are sufficient resources for both working capital and to cover emergency expenditure.

The £52.876m earmarked reserves shown above includes £10.875m received from the Department for Education towards reduction of the deficit on the Dedicated Schools Grant.

Borrowing and capital financing

The Council currently has £223.378m of borrowing outstanding as at 31 March 2023.

There has been no external short term borrowing necessary for this financial year.

The Capital Programme for 2022/23 to 2026/27 was agreed by the Council in March 2023. This outlined the capital expenditure planned for 2023/24 and the borrowing requirement of £24.356m.

Collection Fund Rates for Council Tax and Business Rates

The net collection for Council Tax at the end of March 2023/period 12 was 95.21% of the £162.414m collectable, leaving £7.781m to be recovered.

The net collection for Business Rates at the end of March 2023/period 12 is 96.41% of the £77.847m collectable, leaving £2.795m of debt to be recovered.

Council Tax funds services from both the London Borough of Bexley and the Greater London Authority (GLA), the split of the Council Tax income and Debt is 79:21. Whilst income from Business Rates are shared between the London Borough of Bexley, GLA and the Department of Levelling Up, Homes and Communities in a ratio of 30:37:33.

Non-Current Asset Revaluation

The Council appointed Wilkes Head & Eve to carry out a rolling valuation programme of a proportion of the Council’s assets in 2022/23. The impact of these valuations is reported within the notes to the accounts.

Significant Changes in Accounting Policies

The accounts for 2022/23 are presented in accordance with the Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom (the Code) which specifies the principles and practices of accounting required to give a ‘true and fair’ view of the financial position and transactions of the local authority.

The Code sets out the proper accounting practices required by Section 21(2) of the Local Government Act 2003. These proper practices apply to the Statement of Accounts prepared in accordance with the statutory framework established for England by the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015.

The 2022/23 Code incorporates required accounting standard amendments, although there were no material impacts on the Council as a result of the amendments.

Bexley’s Medium-Term Financial Plan

The medium term financial planning process is an essential part of the Council’s strategic planning framework. The Medium Term Financial Strategy integrates strategic and financial planning over a four-year period. It translates the Corporate Plan priorities into a financial framework which enables the Cabinet and officers to ensure policy initiatives can be delivered within available resources and can be aligned to priority outcomes.

In February 2023, the Budget Gap was £20.258m, with the biggest pressure on 2026/27 as shown below.

Economic Climate

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the Council, with some services still to return to pre-COVID operating levels. The most significant impacts have been loss of car parking income, commercial rent, loss of income from leisure facilities and other fees and charges. The Council has not received Government funding towards the additional costs and reduced income this year.

The Council continues to face increasing pressures relating to domestic economic factors, such as supply chains and the ongoing war in the Ukraine resulting in higher energy prices, all fuelling inflation. In March 2023, inflation was 10.10%, with projections indicating that inflation will decline to a little above 1.00% at the two and three year horizons - materially below the 2.00% target. Similarly, interest rates continue to rise and rose by 0.25% in February 2022 to 4.25% in March 2023.

There are also further pressures on the Council, primarily its ability to recruit and retain staff, increasing levels of demand and cost, specifically for Adult and Children Social Care and SEN Transport. But also pressures on other demand led services such as housing, parking and waste services. The cumulative impact on the cost of living for residents and businesses impacting on discretionary spend, debt collection rates, safeguarding and homelessness.

Whilst the Council’s un-ringfenced General Fund reserve would have some capacity to absorb some of the financial impact, a robust financial plan is required to ensure the sustainability of the council’s finances are maintained.

Officers will be reviewing the Medium Term Financial Strategy, taking into account the 2022/23 final outturn and the financial impact of the UK and global economic situation. The Council has always used cashflow forecasting to assist with treasury management decisions, however it has gained greater significance as unplanned expenditure has been required to deal with the emerging situation. Cashflow is being closely monitored to ensure sufficient funds are available for daily requirements, to this end the Council is using the resources of The London Borough of Westminster Treasury Team who have a wealth of experience managing cash and investments.

Caroline Holland
Director of Finance and Corporate Services London Borough of Bexley

Date: 10 December 2024