Issue - meetings

Q1 Finance and Capital Report

 

 

Meeting: 14/08/2018 - Cabinet (Item 26)

26 Quarter 1 Finance Revenue and Capital Monitoring Report pdf icon PDF 705 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Lowry (Cabinet member for Finance) introduced the report.  It was highlighted that –

 

·         inherited a budget in which there was £2.4m overspend;

·         £11m savings to be derived this year due to cuts by Government

·         Cabinet members have been working hard with Service Directors to identify savings;

 

For the reasons set out in the report Cabinet agreed –

 

1.    to note the current revenue monitoring position and action plans in place to

reduce/mitigate shortfalls;

2.    to approve the non-delegated virements which have occurred since 1st April 2018;

3.    to recommend to Council that the Capital Budget 2018 -2023 is revised to £581.1m (as shown in Table 6).

Meeting: 08/08/2018 - Housing and Community Services Scrutiny Panel (Item 11)

11 Capital and Revenue Monitoring Report 2018/19 - Quarter 1 pdf icon PDF 705 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Lowry (Cabinet Member for Finance) and Andrew Hardingham (Strategic Director for Transformation and Change) submitted the capital and revenue monitoring report 2018/19 – quarter 1 (end of June 2018). The report detailed how the Council was delivering against its financial measures using its capital and revenue resources, to approve relevant budget variations and virements and report new schemes approved in the capital programme.

 

The following key areas of the report were highlighted –

 

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the estimated revenue overspend was £2.882m; the overall forecast net spend equated to £188.428m against a budget of £185.556m which was a variance of 1.55%;

 

 

 

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this needed to be read within the context of needing to deliver in excess of £11m of savings in 2018/19 on the back of balancing the 2017/18 revenue budget where £18m of net revenue reductions were successfully delivered;

 

 

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additional management solutions and escalated actions to deliver further savings from the Council’s transformation programme would be brought to the table over the coming months, in order to address the in-year forecasted overspend;

 

 

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the Council was not in the same dire financial position as other local authorities, such as Northampton County Council where only statutory services were being delivered; the Council had been pro-active in previous years and had been efficient in growing its Council Tax base (by releasing land for housing) and Business rates.

 

The key areas of questioning from Members related to –

 

(a)

the impact on the Council’s budget of an additional pressure of £625,000 per year, due to the Bank of England’s rise of 0.25% in the base rate;

 

 

(b)

the impact on the Council’s budget in the longer term, due to the Bank of England’s warning  that the base rate would increase further;

 

 

(c)

the lack of regular financial reporting (the quarter one report covered the months of April, May and June);

 

 

(d)

the key areas where savings had been achieved, in order to reduce the deficit to £2.882;

 

 

(e)

how confident was the Cabinet Member for Finance and the Section 151 Officer, that the Council had sufficient reserves to avoid the severe financial difficulties faced by other local authorities and how far away was it from a deep financial situation;

 

 

(f)

whether investment would continue within the city boundary in order to further generate income;

 

 

(g)

the level of investment and the timescale relating to Pledge 4 of the administration’s manifesto to launch a plan for the revival of district shopping centres on Mutley Plain, Marlborough Street (Devonport) and Ernesettle shops.

 

The committee noted the report.