(a)

the overall effect of the variations against the revenue budget had identified a shortfall of funding requirement of £300,000 in 2009/10;

(b)

ongoing additional costs had arisen as a result of the job evaluation exercise undertaken by Plymouth City Council which would require consideration as part of future year’s business planning;

(c)

further costs had been incurred for additional staffing requirements  for the new trading operations above the level of income projected during the first part of the trading year;

(d)

the challenge for the business plan and the 2010/11 budget report on 5 February 2010 to the Joint Committee was to deliver sustainable trading operations, aligned to the level of constituent authority support available and to build a minimum level of reserves.

(e)

there was an ongoing cost of £100,000 for the funding of job evaluation which had not been identified in the base budget for 2009/10;

(f)

it was difficult to predict unforeseen variances within the base budget; for example there had been a significant increase in the insurance premium due to the newly refurbished Barrow Park and the re-evaluation of the business rates which had increased from £700 to £5000;

(g)

it was anticipated that with the appointment of a commercial accountant the financial management would improve together with the accuracy of the budget, planning and monitoring;

(h)

the additional funding of £50,000 which the constituent authorities would be approached to fund had not been included within these figures;

(i)

there was the potential for the Objective One funding to be repaid at an estimated cost of £1.3m should the obligations not be met (Cornwall Council had obtained the Objective One funding); although due to the economic downturn these requirements may not remain the same;

(j)

the statement of accounts and annual governance was required to be submitted to the Audit Commission by 30 June 2010; the accounts for the past four years had not been submitted on time;

(k)

included in the core budget was a sum of £6,500 for the roads and footpaths within the Park; a review was currently being undertaken to ascertain what services could be stopped and all but essential works carried out.

(1)

the report is noted;

(2)

each constituent authority is approached to consider additional financial support of up to £50,000 (per authority) to address the 2009/10 revenue shortfall;

(3)

the recommendation to note that each constituent authority consider conditions against this financial support and final details of this will be reported at the Joint Committee scheduled for 23 July 2010, is approved;

(4)

the 2010/11 Business Plan and the Medium Term Financial projection based on the 2009/10 performance are reviewed and reported at this meeting;

(5)

approval of the statement of accounts and the annual governance is deferred to the next Joint Committee meeting scheduled for 23 July 2010.