Issue - meetings

That the report and the verbal updates be noted.   

The Corporate Finance Manager introduced a report to provide Members with the revenue budget monitoring 2013 (Month 3) for the Council Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) which was being submitted to Cabinet on 17 September 2013. 

For the Council Fund, the projected net in-year expenditure was forecast to be £2.065m less than the budget, which was an increase of £1.065m on the £1m reported at Month 2.  This was reflected in the table at paragraph 3.01, which had been expanded to show the position at Head of Service level in line with accountability for the monitoring of budgets.  The main reason for the improvement of £1m in the forecast was due to an improved position within Social Services for Adults in Community Services as detailed in paragraph 3.04.  The significant in-year projected variances were detailed in appendices one to five together with the actions required to address each variance. 

A number of actions had been taken to strengthen financial control, budget management and financial reporting and these were detailed in paragraphs 4.02 to 4.09 of the report.  The Council’s Financial Procedure Rules had recently been updated and were agreed at Audit Committee and Constitution Committee in July 2013 and would be considered for approval by Council on 25 September 2013.  Financial Procedure Rule 3 (FPR3) in relation to Budget Management had been particularly strengthened in relation to accountability, forecasting and reporting and an extract was included at appendix 8.          

            Paragraph 5 detailed the amounts held centrally for pay inflation for the 1% pay award and for non standard price inflation in respect of Energy for Street Lighting, Energy, Fuel and Food Costs and it was currently assumed that the amounts included would be required in full. 

The risks and assumptions were identified in section 6.00 and the achievement of efficiencies were reported at section 7 where it was noted that at this early stage it was estimated that 95% of the efficiencies included in the budget would be achieved. 

Section 8 advised of the outcome of the piece of work undertaken on forecasting and trend analysis and included a recommendation that the budget for Social Services for Adults could be reduced by £1.670m and that a recurring efficiency of £1.435m be included in the MTFP. Further work was also being progressed in respect of Out of County Placements and Family Placement which would be reported in the Month 4 budget monitoring report.

The current position on unearmarked reserves was detailed in paragraphs 9.01 to 9.04 where it was reported that the Minister for Local Government & Government Business had decided not to exercise discretion to fund the Council’s claim for financial support under the Emergency Financial Assistance Scheme for costs incurred due to the severe weather in March 2013.  An allocation of £0.518m had been made from the contingency reserve to the appropriate Council Fund service accounts to finance the recovery costs expenditure. 

            The Corporate Finance Manager also advised of a projected overspend of £0.043m on the Housing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29