Issue - meetings

[To consider details of the resources currently held in reserves, provisions and general balances by the Council as at 31 March 2016 taking account of the outturn position for 2015/16]

Cllr Andrew Johnson outlined the salient points of the report on the Council’s resources currently held as specific reserves, provisions and general balances as at 31 March 2016, taking account of the outturn position for 2015/16.

Resolved:

1.     That the transfers (to)/from specific reserves, provisions and general balances as detailed in tables 2, 3 and 4 of the report be approved.

2.     That expenditure from provisions for their purposes as set out in Appendix B to the report, up to the value held in each provision as at 31 March 2016 be approved.

3.     That the continuation of delegation of authority to the Cabinet Member for Resources, in consultation with the Director of Finance, to allocate funds from the Budget Contingency Reserve, the Regeneration Reserve, the Efficiency Reserve, the Transformation Reserve, the Development Reserve, the Regional Work Reserve, the Enterprise Zone Business Rates Reserve, the Business Rates Equalisation Reserve, the Treasury Management Equalisation Reserve and the Budget Strategy Reserve during 2016/17 be approved.

4.     That the continuation of delegation of authority to the Cabinet Member for Resources, in consultation with the Managing Director, to allocate funds from the Combined Authority Reserve during 2016/17 be approved.

5.     The level of the Council’s specific reserves, provisions and general balances as at 31 March 2016 and the purposes for which they are being held, as detailed in Appendices A and B to the report be noted.

6.     That it be noted that the relevance and adequacy of specific reserves and general balances would be reviewed as required by the Constitution during the 2017/18 budget setting process.

7.     That it be noted that the allocation of funding from all specific reserves would be reported to Cabinet (Resources) Panel in the scheduled quarterly budget monitoring reports.

8.     That it be noted that the Confident Capable Council Scrutiny Panel would scrutinise the use of reserves as part of the budget setting process as in previous years.

9.     That it be noted that the Director of Finance considers that the overall level of all reserves, provisions and balances is sufficient to meet the likely level of obligations to be met from reserves, provisions and general balances in the short term.

10.That it be noted that the positive General Fund outturn position during 2015/16, and the resulting adjustments to reserves, would help to support the Council’s short term financial position, enabling one-off investment to support transformation of the Council. However, it does not address the challenging financial position that the Council finds itself in over the medium term; namely identifying an additional £54.6 million of budget reduction and income generation proposals over the three year period to 2019/20. Cabinet would be presented with a report at this meeting detailing the progress towards identifying £22.2 million of budget reduction and income regeneration proposals for 2017/18.

11.That it be noted that the figures quoted in the report are still subject to statutory audit by Grant Thornton UK LLP as part of the 2015/16 accounts closedown process.