Form

Points to note and changes to the revenue outturn forms

Updated 18 May 2023

Applies to England

This document highlights key points to note and outlines changes in the RO suite of forms for 2022-23.

A. General

1. The deadline for return of the RO suite of forms is Friday 28 July 2023. While the deadline for preparation of draft accounts has reverted to the end of May (from the beginning of August), the RO deadline is now midway between i) the late August deadline that was for outturns 2020 21 and 2021-22 and ii) the late June deadline prior to that.

2. The 28 July deadline is for provisional data, and you should resubmit your return when updated data becomes available.

3. Formal certification of Revenue Outturn and Capital Outturn forms is required starting this year. The deadline for submitting a certified Revenue Outturn return is Friday 13 October 2023. Certification is carried out by completing the section at the foot of the first worksheet of the form (worksheet called ‘contact details’).

4. Please always keep in mind:

i) the principle of providing the best figures that can be provided by the deadline, estimating wherever necessary.

ii) the requirement for figures to be provided for all relevant lines. NB The long-standing general guidance “Where the authority’s service analysis is not sufficiently detailed to provide an accurate breakdown between certain lines of a form, an estimated breakdown must be given; entries on lines cannot be coupled together.”

5. The detailed general and item-specific guidance have been updated to reflect the changes. These are included in the set of documents provided in the form launch email, and they will be updated online at RO General guidance and RO specific guidance notes.

6. If you have any questions, please first consult the guidance documents. If you have any other issues or questions, contact us via: lgf1.revenue@levellingup.gov.uk

B. New data items

7. The changes to data items to Revenue Outturn 2022-23 were approved by our steering group (CLIP-F) in October 2022 and received final sign-off on 26 February 2023. Details were distributed to all contacts on 10 March 2023 (also attached for convenience). In summary:

i) Expenditure on agency staff is to be reported for each of the 13 broad service groupings

ii) Dedicated schools grant adjustment account levels are now to be reported (line 912)

iii) Four sub-categories have been added to the ‘Children looked after’ category

iv) ‘COVID discharge costs (RO3 line 7)’ and PPE memo items have been removed

v) In the Subjective Analysis Return, Social Care (adult and children’s) and Public Health categories have been given separate columns.

8. In addition, the list of grants has been updated. Grant allocations have been pre-populated where these were readily available. These figures can be overwritten if more up-to-date data supersedes them.

9. Please note that the support for energy bills, including the discretionary fund, should both be treated as out of scope of the data return.

C. Subjective Analysis Return (SAR)

10. In 2013-14 the SAR collection methodology was reviewed in order to reduce burden on authorities. Under this reduction:

i) The Subjective Analysis Return is required only from a sample of authorities.

ii) The full SAR form is collected every 3 years, while only Part A (employee costs) is required in the intervening 2 years. For 2022-23, all parts are required, i.e. including:

• Part B, the subjective analysis of the Running Expenses column (i.e. non-employee costs) and
• Part C, which requires total rental income (a component of RO6, line 489) to be shown separately from total recharges and from the residual from the ‘other income’ column.

11. Please note that:

i) in SAR A (employee costs), the column ‘Social Care and Public Health’ has now been split into three columns, one for each of its components: Adult Social Care, Children’s Social Care, and Public Health.

ii) in SAR B (running expenses), the column ‘Social Care’ has now been split into its two columns, one for each of its components: Adult Social Care and Children’s Social Care.

D. Reserves and COVID-19 business rate relief grants after NNDR1 process, including COVID-19 Additional Relief Fund (CARF)

12. The RO2022-23 form has equivalent reserves categories as RO2021-22 as follows:

Exceptional elements within 1027 ‘Other earmarked reserves: Other’.

• 1028

Other Earmarked reserves: due to authority’s share of expanded retail relief grants 2020-21 and 2021-22 for billing and precepting authorities. See cell note and explanatory guidance document.

• 1029

Other Earmarked reserves: Authority’s share of COVID-19 Additional Relief Fund (2021-22) for billing and precepting authorities. See cell note and explanatory guidance document.

13. These categories have been pre-populated from NNDR3 2021-22 with amounts reported as accrued (these can be overwritten as appropriate). This contrasts with the pre-population of RO2020-21 which was pre-populated from shares of the initial grant allocations, which were higher than the total reliefs.

14. COVID-19 Additional Relief Fund (CARF) - In many cases, CARF grant income was recognised only in 2022-23, therefore either: a) if it was included in the NNDR1 process then none of it should show in these reserves lines. The amount would simply be added into the retained business rates aggregate (line 870) alongside other S31 grants for the year when it was spent, or b) if it was not accounted in the NNDR1 forecasting process for 2022-23, then for any amounts passing to reserves for use in a later year, do not record that part of CARF grant income in line 870 ‘retained business rates’; instead record that part in 885 ‘other items’.

15. If rows 1028 (and 1029 in cases where CARF was accrued in 2021-22) are set to zero, then the amount will not flow out to financing line 815d (by the formula in that line which is the movement in levels of 1028 & 1029). In that case, line 870 (retained business rates) will need to be correspondingly higher.

Other earmarked reserves sub-categories

16. These other earmarked reserves sub-categories have been pre-populated for 1/4/2022 with the end year (31/3/2022) figure provided in your RO 2021-22 return:

1023 Other earmarked reserves: Contractual commitments
1024 Other earmarked reserves: Planned future revenue and capital spending
1025 Other earmarked reserves: Specific risks
1026 Other earmarked reserves: Budget stabilisation
1030 Other Earmarked reserves: of which (enter description of any exceptional components in the cell below)

17. You may update any of these pre-populated figures for 1/4/2022, but it is important not to overwrite the formulae that link to and from 811-816 (appropriation to/from reserves), such as the formulae that calculate the end year levels (from level at 1 April plus appropriations). These cells are shaded in blue. These formulae preserve the consistency between movement in reserves levels by drawing from appropriation to/from reserves (lines 811-816) in the financing section of the ‘RS’ worksheet.

18. The NNDR3 figures that are pre-populated into 1028 & 1029 feed into the other earmarked reserves total along with 1023‑1026 and 1030. Therefore the resulting total for ‘other earmarked’ reserves may differ from that reported for 31/3/2022 in RO2021-22. As noted, you may update any of the pre-populated figures for 1/4/2022.

19. You must make sure that the sub-components of ‘other earmarked reserves’ (lines 1023-1026) are all completed for 31/3/2023 as well, and that the overall movement in ‘other earmarked reserves’ matches appropriations to/from ‘other earmarked’ reserves (line 815). The form will alert you if they are inconsistent.

DLUHC Local Government Finance Data Collection Team

15 May 2023