Issue - meetings

That the report be noted.                                                

The Corporate Finance Manager introduced a report to provide Members with the Revenue Budget Monitoring 2013/14 (Month 11) information for the Council Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which was being submitted to Cabinet on 13 May 2014. 

                        For the Council Fund, the projected net in-year expenditure was reported to be £2.215m less than budget, which was an increase of £0.064m on the £2.151m reported at Month 10.  This was reflected in the table at paragraph 3.01 and the movements from Month 10 in Community Services, Environment, Lifelong Learning, Corporate Services and Central & Corporate Finance were summarised in Appendix 1. 

Progress on the efficiencies included in the 2013/14 budget was detailed in paragraph 3.05, which currently indicated that £4.270m of the £5.331m (80%) would be achieved, resulting in a net under-achievement of £1.061m; the full details were provided in appendix 9.  

On the issue of inflation, the Corporate Finance Manager explained that to date only the amounts in respect of the pay award and food costs had been allocated out to service areas.  With regard to energy costs these would continue to be closely monitored, although at this stage it appeared that all of the allocation would be required and was reflected in the projected outturn.  Section 6 and appendix 7 provided details of the unearmarked reserves and indicated that the current projected level of the contingency reserve at the end of March 2014 was £4.901m. 

                        The HRA was projected to have an overall underspend of £0.171m for 2013/14 and a projected closing balance at Month 11 of £1.605m, which at 5.61% of the total expenditure, satisfied the prudent approach of ensuring a maximum level of 3%; full details on the significant variances in the HRA were included in appendix 8. 

One carry forward request had been received for £0.085m for costs that had been scheduled for 2013/14 but would now fall into 2014/15. 

                        In response to a question from Councillor Haydn Bateman about the write offs in Central Services due to the higher than anticipated presentation of out of date cheques, the Corporate Finance Manager explained that when cheques that had been raised against a specific service area had not been cashed after six months they became invalid and the relevant amount written back into the accounts within Central and Corporate.  If a reissue of the cheque was subsequently required, the expenditure would be re input against the Central & Corporate Finance area. 

Following a further question the Corporate Finance Manager advised that the word ‘demand’ had been omitted from the third bullet point under the Community Services Section on appendix 1. 

Councillor Ian Dunbar queried whether the amount for the works undertaken on the former Euticals site in Sandycroft was the final cost and asked whether there would be any benefit to the Council once the issue had been concluded.  He also queried what percentage of monies had been lost by the Council due to the issue of obtaining a refund from Landsbanki.  The Chief Executive explained that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 97