Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendations.

The Head of Finance provided the most up to date revenue budget monitoring information (Month 11) for the Council Fund and the Housing Revenue Account in 2013/14, based on actual income and expenditure as at Month 11 and projected forward to year-end based on the most up to date information available.

The projected year end position on the Council Fund, as estimated at Month 11 was:

·        Net in year expenditure forecast to be £2.215m less than budget (an increase of £0.064m on the £2.151m reported at Month 10)

·        Projected contingency reserve balance at 31 March 2014 of £4.901m

On the HRA, the net in year expenditure forecast was £0.171m less than budget (£0.089m as at Month 10) with a projected closing balance at 31 March 2014 of £1.605m.

The table in the report showed a projected positive variance of expenditure against budget of £2.215m.  The original budget column reflected in-year virements which had been approved in compliance with Financial Procedure Rules.  All of the movements from Month 10 were summarised in Appendix 1 to the report with detailed reasons for all variances summarised by Directorate in Appendices 2 to 8. 

During the period a number of areas had been identified that may require the carrying forward of funding into 2014/15 and each would be given careful consideration over the coming weeks with an update being provided in the month 12 budget monitoring report.  Requests to carry forward £0.085m had been received to fund software costs in relation to job scheduling and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA’s) hand held devices that had not materialised in 2013/14 but would be purchased in 2014/15 and £0.015m to the maisonette decant costs not being fully spent in the year.

The 2013/14 budget contained £5.331m of specific efficiencies and the table in the report summarised the current position in relation to the achievement of those items.  The analysis showed that it was currently projected that £4.270m (80%) would be achieved which resulted in a net underachievement of £1.061m.

After brining in the impact of the projected in year budget position the current projected level of the contingency reserve at the end of March 2014 was £4.901m.

On the HRA, there was an overall projected underspend of £0.171m and a projected closing balance at Month 11 of £1.605m which at 5.61% of total expenditure satisfied the prudent approach of ensuring a minimum level of 3%.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment asked for a breakdown of information contained in paragraph 3.05 of the report as to why all of the specific efficiencies had not been achieved.  The Head of Finance explained that the relevant commentary to the report was contained in Appendix 9.  The Chief Executive added that early tracking needed to take place on the programme of efficiencies which included tracking at a democratic level.

In response to a further question from the Deputy Leader, the Head of Finance explained that carry forward requests should only be approved if there was a valid reason  ...  view the full minutes text for item 224