Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Finance

Forward Plan Ref: 2013/113

Contact: Stephanie Skivington, Corporate Finance Manager Tel: (01865) 323995

Report by Assistant Chief Executive & Chief Finance Officer (CA6).

This report focuses on the delivery of the Directorate Business Strategies which were agreed as part of the Service and Resource Planning Process for 2013/14 – 2016/17. Parts 1 and 2 include projections for revenue, reserves and balances as at the end of October 2013.  Changes to unringfenced grant funding are set out in Part 3 and Capital Programme monitoring is included at Part 4.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

(a)      note the report;

(b)      approve the virement requests set out in Annex 2a;

(c)      note the updated Treasury Management lending list at Annex 4;

(d)      approve the removal of a residual debt of £19,650 from the Council’s accounts as set out in paragraph 39;  

(e)      agree that the shortfall in revenue grant funding arising from recent unringfenced grant confirmations is met from the Budget Reserve in 2013/14 as set out in paragraph 53;

(f)       approve the changes to the Capital Programme set out in Annex 7c; and

(g)     approve the addition of the project development budget for the A34 Chilton Junction scheme in the Capital Programme as set out in paragraph 62.

Cabinet considered a report that focussed on the delivery of the Directorate Business Strategies which were agreed as part of the Service and Resource Planning Process for 2013/14 – 2016/17. Parts 1 and 2 included projections for revenue, reserves and balances as at the end of October 2013.  Changes to unringfenced grant funding were set out in Part 3 and Capital Programme monitoring was included at Part 4.

Councillor Hards, Shadow Cabinet Member for Finance, made a number of points in relation to the report. In particular he queried why there was a £1m underspend in the Direct Support Grant when schools were financially stressed at the moment; he also referred to the table on page 15 and paragraph 6 and onwards relating to the Children, Education and Families underspend commenting that the two did not appear to relate one to the other. He also made a number of other detailed queries relating to specific items including parking balances and also queried whether pooled budgets could be funded from both revenue and capital sources.

Cabinet Members responded to the individual queries. Councillor Heathcoat confirmed that the majority of equipment is returned and that they look at all possible sources of funding. Councillor Fatemian commented that schools were strongly encouraged to spend the DSG money referred to and that any encouragement that Councillors could give in their roles as School Governors would be welcomed. On the parking situation and CEF query he would provide a written reply to Councillor Hards.

Councillor Fatemian in proposing the recommendation, commented that a slight overspend was predicted and paid tribute to the Finance Team and officers across the board for achieving such a positive response with the budget variance moving in the right direction. He commented that the largest overspend was in the Social & Community Services budget and experience showed that this was normal at this time of the year with the Director not expecting the figure to grow any further and to decrease between now and the end of the year.

During discussion Cabinet noted that there were mechanisms in place to deal with the overspend and highlighted the role of Audit & Governance Committee and the Performance Scrutiny Committee.

RESOLVED:                        to:

(a)       note the report;

(b)       approve the virement requests set out in Annex 2a;

(c)       note the updated Treasury Management lending list at Annex 4;

(d)       approve the removal of a residual debt of £19,650 from the Council’s accounts as set out in paragraph 39;  

(e)       agree that the shortfall in revenue grant funding arising from recent unringfenced grant confirmations is met from the Budget Reserve in 2013/14 as set out in paragraph 53; and

(f)       approve the changes to the Capital Programme set out in Annex 7c; and

(g)      approve the addition of the project development budget for the A34 Chilton Junction scheme in the Capital Programme as set out in paragraph 62.