Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Investment introduced a report on the Council’s capital and revenue position for the 2016/17 financial year, as at 30 November 2016.

The General Fund showed a projected end of year spend of £155.3m against the approved budget of £150.3m, which represented another slight improvement on the previous month’s position.  The main budget pressures continued to be within the Children’s Social Care and Homelessness services and the Cabinet Member also referred to the pressure of £125,000 that had arisen from the decision to maintain a green garden waste collection service during 2016.

The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) showed a projected year end underspend which would result in a contribution of £1.82m to the HRA reserve.  Expenditure on the Capital Programme was forecast to be slightly above budget at £199.17m.  The Cabinet Member also referred to proposed virements from service budgets to reserves totalling £1,809,699 which reflected the savings that had been realised from the recent voluntary redundancy exercise.

In response to a question regarding the £623,000 pressure from the non-recovery of court costs in relation to Council Tax arrears, the Cabinet Member advised that a key factor had been the Court’s tendency not to award costs in favour of the Council in order not to increase the defendant’s debt and enable the individual to clear the debt quicker.

The Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the projected outturn position for 2016/17 of the Council’s General Fund revenue budget at 30 November 2016, as detailed in section 4 and Appendix A to the report;

(ii)  Note the overall position for the Housing Revenue Account at 30 November 2016, as detailed in section 5 of the report;

(iii)  Note the progress made on budgeted savings to date, as detailed in section 6 and Appendix B to the report;

(iv)  Note the projected outturn position for 2016/17 of the Council’s capital budget as at 30 November 2016, as detailed in section 7 and Appendix C to the report; and

(v)  Approve the virements totalling £1,809,699 in respect of the savings realised by the voluntary redundancy exercise, as detailed in paragraph 4.7 of the report.