(a)

the report was the final monitoring (outturn) report for 2016/17 which provided details of the Council’s financial position as at the end of March 2017;

(b)

the Council’s gross revenue budget for 2016/17 was £531.615m which after allowing for income and grant was £186.702m; the financial outturn position before any adjustments was an overspend of £1.272m; assuming the transfers to and from reserves and making use of capital receipts as proposed in the report were approved;

(c)

as at 31 March 2017, the work balance stood at £9.701m and the final capital outturn position was £90.423m; the working balance represented 5.2% of the net revenue budget which remained above the 5% recommended minimum as set out in the budget approved by Council;

(d)

Council approved the use of £0.51m from the working balance to support  the 2017/18 budget; as there was scope to release a further £0.350m from the working balance it was recommended this amount was transferred to the redundancy reserve; after this transfer the working balance would be 5% of the net revenue budget for 2017/18.

(e)

the provision of regular detailed finance monitoring reports to allow proper scrutiny to take place;

(f)

whether the Adult Social Care precept spend could be identified within the report;

(g)

the ‘true’ deficit figure taking into account reserves and stock transfers;

(h)

whether the working balance of 5% was adequate for an organisation of this size;

(i)

concerns over the provision of out of date information and the timely release of financial information to the responsible Cabinet Member;

(j)

whether school balances should be included within the Council’s accounts, as academies received funding direct from Central Government;

(k)

whether the Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2018/19 would be available to scrutinise;

(l)

seeking a re-assessment of the investment figures contained within the report and an assurance that the figures presented were correct and not considered to be confidential information;

(m)

the impact of the proposed changes to business rates on the budget;

(n)

the assets that the Council had acquired during 2016/17.

(1)

the September 2017 report to the Select Committee should include directorate and departmental spending plans for 2018-19, net changes from 2017/18, consequences of those changes and associated risk;

(2)

the portfolio holder provides monthly budget monitoring information to scrutiny (method to agreed);

(3)

the portfolio holders to whom real time financial monitoring is available should share this with the respective Overview and Scrutiny Committees when considering related issues.