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Agenda item

Financial Update - Quarter One Performance

To consider and scrutinise the Council’s financial performance information for the first quarter of 2016/17.

Subject To Call In::No - Item to Note.

Decision:

That the financial performance information for the first quarter of 2016/17 be NOTED.  

Minutes:

28.1           The report of the Finance and Asset Management Group Manager, circulated at Pages No. 13-20, attached the first quarterly monitoring report of the Council’s financial performance for the financial year 2016/17. Members were asked to scrutinise the information provided.

28.2           The Finance and Asset Management Group Manager explained that, in February 2016, the Council had set a tight budget for 2016/17 in respect of income but he was pleased to be able to report a surplus at the end of quarter 1. Attention was drawn to Paragraph 2.2 of the report which provided an overall view of the position. Approximately £62,000 had been saved on employees – this was mostly due to vacant posts, however, quite a few of those had now been filled; £19,645 had been saved in premises costs which was due to successful business rates appeals on the Council’s own premises. Currently income was showing a £38,244 surplus which was good given the high targets that had been set at the beginning of the year. The majority had been generated through planning, although trade waste and licensing had also contributed.

28.3           Appendix 1 to the report showed the position for each budget which was assigned to a Group Manager and the current variances against those budgets; although the position appeared to be significantly underspent, it had to be recognised that savings needed to be achieved from the base budget in terms of salaries and procurement savings; both were held as corporate budget codes and accumulated throughout the year so were not deducted until the end of the financial year. Also detailed under the corporate budget was the retained income from the business rates scheme; this showed a deficit of £32,000.  Whilst the position was shown as being down against target at the end of quarter 1, it did represent a marked improvement on the position of the last two years. Members were asked to bear in mind that there remained a substantial number of appeals and claims which were yet to be decided by the Valuation Office Agency and, whilst provision had been made for the likely outcome of the appeals, it was possible that the final position would be in excess of the provision made. The 2016/17 budget position was reliant on strong income streams, control of expenditure and the delivery of a variety of savings plans.

28.4           Attention was drawn to Appendix 2 which set out the capital position; this was currently showing an underspend against the profiled budget of £90,000 which was principally due to underspends on funding housing grant requests as a result of not paying out as much in quarter 1 as originally estimated. In addition, the leisure centre showed as being overspent even though, overall, the project was £50,000 under budget. Currently a number of capital items purchased as part of the project were showing as capital even though it had been agreed at the commencement of the project that they would be funded from revenue resources; that refinancing would not take place until the year end which was when the true budget position would be shown.

28.5           Appendix 3 provided a summary of the current usage of available reserves but did not take account of reserves that had been committed and not yet paid. Whilst the quarter 1 position showed that there remained a significant balance on the reserves, the expectation was that the remaining balance would be spent in the future. Currently the spend on reserves was at £149,112 so there was £6,749,800 remaining for the rest of the year.

28.6           During the brief discussion which ensued, a Member indicated that he had recently read a Local Government Association (LGA) briefing which recommended that Councils should review their insurance to include terrorism and he questioned whether the Council had included this in its costings. In response, the Finance and Asset Management Group Manager explained that the Council did have terrorism cover in place; however, it was currently going through a tender process for all of its insurances and had received advice on what was and was not sufficient.

28.7           Accordingly, it was

Supporting documents: