Agenda item

As detailed in the recommendation.

The Head of Finance introduced the report which provided Members with the most up to date revenue budget monitoring information (Month 11) for the Council Fund and the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) in 2012/13.

The Head of Finance explained that the projected in-year underspend at Month 11 on the Council Fund was £1.737m.  The projected net underspend on the HRA was £0.574m. 

The projection for Month 11 did include the additional costs incurred in 2012/13 associated with the extreme weather conditions at the end of March 2013.  The estimated costs were £0.598m, most of which (£0.523m) were within the projected total overspend for the Environment Directorate and related to dealing with the operational phase of the incident.  Further significant estimated costs relating to the recovery phase were not reflected in the projection as they were expected to be incurred during 2013/14.  The latest estimate of such costs was £0.467m.

In response to a question from the Cabinet Member for Education, the Head of Finance explained that there were two aspects to the claim to Welsh Government (WG).  The first was the Emergency Financial Assistance Scheme (EFAS) scheme which, if successful, the Council was expected to receive approximately £50k.  The second was a claim for the recovery costs.  A claim had been submitted and a response was awaited.  A further potential opportunity to mitigate the impact on the projected outturn position in 2012/13 would be to use some or all of the Winter Maintenance reserve held by the Council to deal with impacts of severe winter weather.  There was a balance of £0.245m within that reserve which could be used in full or part to offset some of the costs of the severe weather event.  The current projection did not assume any use of that reserve.

The significant in-year projected variances to date were detailed in the appendices to the report, including reasons for the variances and the actions required to address each variance.  The significant changes for the Council Fund from Month 10 were detailed in Appendix 1 to the report.

Appendix 7 detailed movements to date on unearmarked reserves and the level of contingency sum available.  As a result of the movements the current projected level of the contingency reserve at the end of March 2013 was £1.301m.

On the Housing Revenue Account there was an overall projected underspend of £0.574m and the projected closing balance at Month 11 of £1.429m.

There were six requests for a carry forward of underspend, details of which were in the report.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the report be noted;

(b)       That the Council Fund contingency sum as at 31 March 2013 be noted;

(c)        That the projected final level of balances on the Housing Revenue Account be noted; and

(d)       That the request for carry forwards of underspends to 2013/14 be approved.