Agenda item

[To note the latest projection of the likely revenue outturn position for the General Fund and Housing Revenue Accounts and approve matters relating to the 2015/16 revenue budget at the end of the second quarter]

Councillor Johnson presented the report, which detailed the latest projection of the likely revenue outturn position for the General Fund and Housing Revenue accounts and sought approval of matters relating to the 2015/16 revenue budget.

Resolved:

a)

1.    That the use of £237,000 from the Regeneration Reserve to fund various regeneration priorities as detailed in Table 7 of the report be approved.

2.    That the use of £15,000 from the Cemeteries and Crematorium Reserve to fund the installation of temperature monitoring system for the mortuary fridges/freezers be approved.

3.    That the use of £230,000 from the Transformation Reserve of which £130,000 is to fund debt management transformation work and £100,000 to fund the implementation of a new e-tendering system and procurement transformation be approved.

4.    That the use of £387,000 from the Efficiency Reserve of which £87,000 is to fund two Temporary Human Resources (HR) Advisors (Schools HR Consultancy) to support schools services and £300,000 for three Business Change Managers (Corporate Programmes) to support Social Care Transformation (1 April 2015 to 31 March 2017) be approved.

5.    That the use of £44,000 from the Budget Contingency Reserve to fund an additional Assistant Category Manager in Corporate Procurement to support the Public Health work stream be approved.

6.    That the use of £1.3 million from Public Health related reserves and balances to fund the corresponding reduction in local authority public health grant allocations for 2015/16 be approved.

7.    That the write off of four prior year sundry debts totalling £49,869.74 as detailed in Appendix F to the report be approved.

8.    That the write off of two prior year council tax debts totalling £15,765.83 as detailed in Appendix G to the report be approved.

9.    That the write off of eight prior year non-domestic rates debts totalling £96,725.73 as detailed at Appendix H to the report be approved.

10.That the 31 virements totalling £2.9 million, for transfers within service directorates, as detailed in Appendix I to the report be approved.

b)

That the following be noted:

1.    That the overall projected outturn for the General Fund is in line with the approved budget. After funding £1.9 million of projected redundancy costs from the General Fund, the balance of these costs totalling £3.1 million will be met from the Budget Strategy Reserve. The projected redundancy costs remain subject to change dependent upon the actual redundancies approved by year end.

2.    That due to the significant underspends against the General Fund budget in 2014/15 a comprehensive review of all service areas has been undertaken to challenge all areas of underspend and to identify any recurrent savings. The results of this review were reported to Cabinet on 21 October 2015 and included in the Savings, Redesign and Income Generation proposals approved for consultation and scrutiny and Base Budget Revisions incorporated into the 2016/17 draft budget.

3.    In the Draft Budget 2016/17 report presented to Cabinet on 21 October 2015, approval was sought to remove all undeliverable Domiciliary Care savings in 2016/17 in light of the announcement of the National Living Wage. This saving is also undeliverable in the current year and has been offset against the forecast underspend on the Treasury Management budget, for which a virement approval is sought in this report; this is detailed in the list of virements to be approved at Appendix I to the report.

4.    That 406 largely prior year sundry debt accounts totalling £81,676.47 have been approved for write off by the Director of Finance in accordance with the Council’s Financial Procedure Rules.

5.    That 3,702 largely prior year council tax accounts totalling £743,120.40 have been approved for write off by the Director of Finance in accordance with the Council’s Financial Procedure Rules.

6.    That 309 prior year non-domestic rates accounts totalling £1,613,153.55 have been approved for write off by the Director of Finance in accordance with the Council’s Financial Procedure Rules, the majority of which are due to insolvencies or bankruptcies.

7.    The projected outturn for the Housing Revenue account (HRA) realises a surplus of £18.3 million compared with a budgeted surplus of £15.7 million as shown at table 8 and in detail at Appendix J. The projected increased surplus of £2.6 million will be used to redeem debt in line with the HRA Business Plan.

8.      The reduction in Youth Justice Board Grant of £56,000 and Public Health Grant of £1.3 million in 2015/16.