Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Finance

Forward Plan Ref: 2022/251

Contact: Kathy Wilcox, Head of Financial Strategy, 07788302163

Report by Director of Finance (CA7).

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

a)   note the performance against the capital programme for 2022/23 as set out in the report.

Recommendations approved.

Cabinet received a report on performance relating to the Capital Programme for 2022/23. 

Councillor Calum Miller, Cabinet Member for Finance, presented the report.

The ten-year Capital Programme set out the agreed capital investment to deliver the priorities identified in the council’s Capital and Investment Strategy.  The report set out the performance against the programme shown in the latest monitoring report for 2022/23 and also compared back to the capital programme agreed by Council in February 2022.  The figures reflected those to be included in the Council’s Statement of Accounts for 2022/23.

The capital programme was updated throughout the year to reflect the latest delivery profiles and cost estimates for each programme.  The last update was in January 2023 and this was agreed by Cabinet in March 2023.   Expected spend for the year totalled £184.0m.  Actual capital programme expenditure was £172.2m in 2022/23.  The variation between the latest programme and the actual expenditure was -£11.8m (-6%).   This spend was now expected to take place in 2023/24.

The capital programme expenditure of £172.2m was funded by £99.1m of capital grants and other external contributions, £28.8m of developer contributions and Community Infrastructure Levy, £2.6m of revenue contributions, and £41.7m of prudential borrowing.

The availability of workforce and materials and inflationary increases in contract prices were continuing to increase the risk to the deliverability and cost of capital schemes.  The combined impact of these factors has affected delivery in 2022/23 and is expected to continue in 2023/24 and future years.

During discussion, members referred to the Council’s priorities for the development of a sustainable transport infrastructure within the Capital programme to benefit those areas of the County which were not well served by transport networks currently.

Councillor Miller moved and Councillor Sudbury seconded the recommendations and they were approved.

RESOLVED to note the performance against the capital programme for 2022/23 as set out in the report.