Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place)

The Audit and Procurement Committee considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive (Place) that had been considered by Cabinet at their meeting on 9^th July 2019 (their minute 11/19 referred) and would also be considered by the Council at their meeting on 3^rd September 2019, that outlined the final revenue and capital outturn position for 2018/19 and reviewed treasury management activity and 2018/19 Prudential Indicators reported under the Prudential Code for Capital Finance.

The overall financial position included the following headline items:

•  A final revenue underspend of £1.0m which is required to be contributed to the Council’s General Fund reserve.

•  Overspends of £2.7m within Waste and Fleet Services and £3.0m relating to to housing and homelessness issues, in large part from the cost of Housing Benefit payments for people and families who require housing in emergency accommodation.

•  Offsetting underspends across a range of other services and in particular a £4m favourable position within central budgets including the Asset Management Revenue Account.

•  Capital Programme expenditure of £147m which is £115m less than envisaged at the start of the year but nevertheless represents the largest programme in the modern era.

•  Time-limited resources and some favourable budgetary movements in the final quarter which  enable several recommended contributions to reserve balances as set out below. These are aimed at strengthening the Council’s financial resilience and providing funding to take forward future commercial developments.

•  An increase in the level of Council revenue reserves from £62m to £71m.

The underlying revenue position had improved significantly since Quarter 3 when an underspend of £1.8 was forecast. In particular, this related to improvements within Contingency and Central budgets which were set out in the report. This had enabled the Council to identify several actions which would strengthen its existing financial resilience and help to introduce other proposals designed to identify savings proposals in future budgets. The proposals, put forward through the Director of Finance and Corporate Services, the Council’s Section 151 officer, were reflected in the recommendations below and explained in section 5.1 of the report

Cabinet:

1)  Approved the final revenue outturn underspend of £1.0m (section 2.1 and Appendix 1 of the report) which will be added to the Council’s General Fund reserve.

2)  Approved the final capital expenditure and resourcing position (section 2.3 and Appendix 2 of the report), incorporating expenditure of £146.7m against a final budget of £175.9m; £26.5m expenditure rescheduled into 2018/19 and a net underspend £2.7m.

3)  Approved the outturn Prudential Indicators position in section 2.4.4 and Appendix 3 of the report.

4)  Recommend that the Council approve reserve contributions of £4.6m to the Council’s General Fund reserve to strengthen the Council’s financial resilience, 4.0m to fund the costs of potential future commercial developments and £1.8m to strengthen the Council’s reserve for early retirement and redundancy exit costs.

RESOLVED that the Audit and Procurement Committee notes the contents of the report and had no issues for the Cabinet Member for Strategic Finance and Resources at this time.