Issue - meetings

Revenue Budget Monitoring 2014/15 (Month 8)

Meeting: 12/02/2015 - Corporate Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee (Item 72)

72 Revenue Budget Monitoring 2014/15 (Month 8) pdf icon PDF 47 KB

Additional documents:

Decision:

            That the report be noted.                  

 

Minutes:

The Corporate Finance Manager introduced a report to provide Members with the Revenue Budget Monitoring 2014/15 (Month 8) report for the Council Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which was to be submitted to Cabinet on 17 February 2015. 

 

The Corporate Finance Manager advised that for the Council Fund   the projected net in year expenditure was forecast to be £1.014m lower than budget.  The projected contingency reserve balance at 31 March 2015 was £3.955m.  Appendix 1 detailed the movements since Month 7 with the projected variances occurring for the year to date summarised within appendix 2.  Changes in the revised budget over month 7 related to adjustments relating to the single status rebasing exercise.   Section 3.06 detailed the efficiencies and it was currently projected that £7.574m of the £8.840m (86%) would be achieved.  Details of the workforce efficiencies, voluntary redundancy programme and organisational work on vacancies was provided in paragraph 3.10.       

 

The risks and assumptions were as detailed in Section 5 and the unearmarked reserves were summarised in Section 6.  Taking into account the amounts needed to be used from the unearmarked reserves and the current projected outturn at month 8, the projected balance on the contingency reserve at 31 March 2015 was £3.955m and was summarised in appendix 4.    

                       

                        The HRA was projected to have an overall underspend of £0.324m and a projected closing balance at month 8 of £1.490m, which at 4.96% of total expenditure satisfied the prudent approach of ensuring a minimum level of 3%.  Appendix 5 detailed the reasons for the significant variances. 

 

The Chief Executive commented on the improved style of reporting on in-year risks following the useful discussions which had taken place at the last meeting of the Committee, and said that the report summarised the current level of concerns.  On the issue of risks and assumptions, Councillor Richard Jones welcomed the detail provided and the RAG status, however, he requested that potential costings be included on the risks to enable the Committee to comment on the value.  The Chief Executive agreed to improve the format further.

 

            RESOLVED:

 

            That the report be noted.