Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Investment presented a report on the Council’s revenue budget monitoring position for the 2017/18 financial year as at 31 January 2018.

The General Fund showed a projected year-end overspend of £6.23m against the budget of £145.13m, which represented an improvement of £0.579m on that reported for the end of December 2017 (Month 9).  The Cabinet Member alluded to the pressures and risks which affected a range of service areas and commented that it was unlikely that the position would improve much further by the end of the financial year.

The Cabinet Member referred to a number of proposed carry forwards and virements relating to General Fund revenue budgets and the provision of a working credit facility of up to £2.5m to the Barking and Dagenham Trading Partnership, primarily to assist the company with liquidity / cashflow issues in its first year of operation starting 1 April 2018.  The Cabinet Member also advised on proposed delegations to the Chief Operating Officer to facilitate the closure of the Council’s accounts by the deadline of 31 May 2018, as the Cabinet would not meet again until June 2018 due to the forthcoming Local Elections.

The Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the forecast outturn position for 2017/18 of the Council’s General Fund revenue budget as detailed in section 2 and Appendix A of the report;

(ii)  Note the financial risks and the suggested mechanisms for resolving them, as detailed in section 3 of the report; 

(iii)  Approve the carry forward requests into the 2018/19 revenue budget, as detailed in the table at paragraph 4.1 of the report;

(iv)  Approve the transfer of up to £1.0m “Procurement Gainshare” into the Core Infrastructure reserve to fund future investment in ICT and other core services;  

(v)   Approve the virements within 2017/18 revenue budgets, as set out in paragraph 5.1 of the report; 

(vi)  Note the overview of the HRA for 2017/18, as detailed in section 6 and Appendix B of the report;

(vii)  Delegate authority to the Chief Operating Officer, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Investment, to take decisions in respect of the following matters as part of the process for the closure of the Council’s accounts for 2017/18:

·  Carry forward of monies allocated or received for specific purposes where expenditure has not been incurred in the financial year;

·  The making of revenue contributions to capital;

·  The financing of redundancies and associated pension costs.

(viii)  Approve a working capital facility of up to £2.5m for the Barking and Dagenham Trading Partnership on the terms set out in section 8 of the report; and

(ix)  Delegate authority to the Chief Operating Officer, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Investment and the Director of Law and Governance, to agree the terms, including the rate, duration and security regarding the working capital facility to Barking and Dagenham Trading Partnership.