The Cabinet Member for Finance, Revenues and Benefits presented a report on the Council’s revenue and capital budget position for 2011/12 as at 31 July 2011.
The General Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) showed a similar position to that for the end of June, with projected full-year pressures of £4.5m and £47,000 respectively. The Cabinet Member confirmed that progress continued to be made in the efforts to redress the overspend positions, which had included the completion of a zero-based budget exercise within Environmental Services the implications from which would be reported in due course.
The report also set out details of a number of proposed revenue and capital budget adjustments, the finalised reserves position for 2010/11, which reflected an additional £65,000 contribution to reserves to that contained in the provisional outturn report to Cabinet on 14 June 2011 (Minute 3), and transfers from reserves to Finance and Resources departmental budgets totalling £2.23m.
Cabinet agreed:-
(i) To note the projected outturn position for 2011/12 of the Council’s revenue and capital budgets as set out in paragraphs 3 and 6 and Appendix A and D of the report;
(ii) To note the progress against the 2011/12 savings targets as set out in paragraph 4 and Appendix B of the report;
(iii) To note the position for the HRA as set out in paragraph 5 and Appendix C of the report;
(iv) The following revenue budget adjustments:
· £190,000 from Children’s Services to Legal Services to enable additional casework to be dealt with in-house and minimise the use of external legal firms;
· £60,000 from Children’s Services to Legal Services to fund in-house Advocacy support and reduce the use of Counsel.
(v) The finalised 2010/11 reserves as set out in paragraph 3.8 of the report;
(vi) The following transfers from reserves:
· £1.75m from the Operational Delivery Reserve to the Finance and Resources service to meet anticipated costs associated with the joint venture with Elevate;
· £480,000 from reserves to the Finance and Resources service to release rolled forward underspends achieved within the Finance and Resources service in 2010/11.
(vii) The capital budget adjustments as set out in the appendix E of the report.