Agenda item

(i)            Resources – Report of the Corporate Director Resources.

(ii)          Assistant Chief Executive – Report of the Assistant Chief Executive.

The Committee received two reports the first of the Corporate Director Resources  and the second of the Assistant Chief Executive which provided details of the forecast outturn budget position for the Resources and Assistant Chief Executive’s service groupings, highlighting major variances in comparison with the budget based on the position to the end of December 2015 (for copy see file of minutes).

The Finance Manager in referring to the Resources advised that the service was reporting a cash limit (underspend) of £1,442,000 against a revised budget of £17.967 million. This compared with an underspend of £990,000 which was reported at Quarter 2. Further details relating to the underspend were detailed within the report by Subjective Analysis and Head of Service.

In summary the service grouping was on track to maintain spending within its cash limit. It was also reported that all MTFP savings were on track with some early achievement of 2016/17 savings.

In relation to the capital programme it was reported the original budget had been revised for additions / reductions and with such was now set at £11.616 million. Total expenditure to 31 December 2015 was £6.337 million and with such was below profiled / expected spend in the year to date. Details of actual expenditure were included within the report.

Moving on to the Assistant Chief Executives service grouping the Finance Manager advised that the revised General Fund Budget now stood at £9.522 million.

He further advised that the service grouping was reporting a cash limit under budget of £222,000 against a revised budget of £9.522. This compared to an under budget of £237,000 reported at Quarter 2. Details were provided in the report of actual expenditure by Subjective Analysis and by Head of Service.

It was further reported that the service grouping was on track to maintain spending within its cash limit and furthermore that MTFP savings for 2015/16 had been fully achieved.

Moving on to the capital programme the Finance Manager advised that the budget had been rephased form 2014/15 and with such had increased to £3.776 million. Further revisions had also been made during the course of the year and with such the revised budget now stood at £3.991 million. The service had to date incurred £1.090 million of actual expenditure.

Councillor Wilkes in referencing the £1.442m underspend in Resources queried whether this amount which was not known about at the time of setting the budget would be available for spending and if not what would it be used for. In response the Finance Manager advised that the service would be looking for 16/17 savings early and an element of the £1.4 million would be taken into account. Any additional underspend would be added to the end of year reserves.

Councillor Wilkes in response commented that in his opinion, Councillors should have the ability to recommend what any underspend was spent on once it was known that there was more money in pot than the agreed budget originally said.

Councillor Armstrong added that the council was in strong position because of the high level of reserves held by the council. He further added that he considered the suggestions totally acceptable, adding that members could ask Cabinet to consider utilising any areas of underspend on different projects.

Councillor Martin further commented that at present there seemed to be a lack of transparency regarding money going into cash limit reserves as it was not known or reported what those individual department plans were for deploying that cash. Further discussion took place regarding cash limits and Councillor Hillary added that he felt that cash limits were not a good thing and that special cases should be put forward for any suggested spend. He further added that he would like to see these buffers reduced in future. In response the Finance Manager advised that cash limits allowed managers to take ownership of their budgets which in turn avoided a last minute rush at year end to spend allocated budgets. Councillor Hillary noted that he could see benefits in both sides of the argument.

Resolved:

That the content of the reports be noted.