Agenda item

[To consider details of the resources currently held in reserves, provisions and balances by the Council as at 31 March 2015]

Cllr Andrew Johnson reported that the central part of the report was that the favourable financial outturn position had enabled £17 million to be transferred from the General Fund into specific reserves and the Council to continue to hold £10 million in General fund balances, which was the minimum balance as determined by the Council’s policy on reserves and balances. The £17 million specific reserve would be used to fund redundancies and for ‘invest to save’ schemes. Cllr Johnson also reported that reserves were monitored annually by the Confident Capable Council Scrutiny Panel to ensure that their uses were appropriate.

Resolved:

1.    That the transfers to/(from) specific reserves, provisions and general balances as detailed in tables 2, 3 and 4, including a transfer of £17 million from the General Fund balance into specific reserves 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 2015 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 and the Transformation Reserve during 2015/16 be approved.

4.    That authority be delegated to the Cabinet Member for Resources, in consultation with the Director of Finance, to allocate funds from the Development Reserve, the Regional Work Reserve, the Enterprise Zone Business Rates, the Business Rates Equalisation and the Treasury Management Equalisation Reserves, and the Budget Strategy Reserve during 2015/16.

5.    That authority be delegated to the Cabinet Member for Resources, in consultation with the Managing Director, to allocate funds from the Combined Authority Reserve during 2015/16.

6.    That the level of the Council’s specific reserves, provisions and general balances as at 31 March 2015 and the purposes for which they are being held be noted.

7.    That it be noted that relevance and adequacy of specific reserves and general balances would be reviewed as required by the Constitution during the 2016/17 budget setting process.

8.    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.

9.    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.

10.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.

11.That it be noted that the favourable General Fund outturn position during 2014/15, and the resulting adjustments to reserves, would help to support the Council’s short term financial position, however it does not address the challenging financial position that the Council finds itself in over the medium term; namely identifying an additional £46.3 million of savings.Work continues to identify budget savings to address the projected budget deficit faced by the council over the medium term.