Issue - items at meetings - Financial Monitoring Report: 2016/17

To provide an update on the year end forecast for the 2016/17 County Council’s Revenue and Capital Budgets.

Cllr Ray Theodoulou, Cabinet Member: Finance and Change, gave an updateon the year end forecast for the 2016/17 County Council’s Revenue and Capital Budgets.

Having considered all of the information, including known proposals and the reasons for the recommendations, Cabinet noted the report and,

RESOLVED to:

Note the forecast;

a) Revenue year end position, as at the end of November for the 2016/17 financial year, of a £0.893 million under-spend.

b) Capital year end position for 2016/17 of a £1.64 million under-spend against the re-profiled budget and the changes to the 2016/17 re-profiled budgets detailed in section B.

Approve the transfer of £0.454 million from a revenue underspend in the Technical & Corporate budget to the Economic Stimulus Reserve to fund costs associated with expanding the Council’s apprenticeship programme.

Confirm the revised payment timetable of £1.0 million to Highways England between 1^st February 2017 and 1^st January 2018 in relation to the A417 Missing Link project in line with the funding agreement between the Council and Highways England.

Approve the following changes to the capital programme:

a) Increase the Adults capital programme by £1.834 million (£0.8 million in 2016/17 and £1.034 million in 2017/18), funded by a Department of Health Capital Grant, to enable the purchase and adaptation of various properties for people with learning difficulties.

b) Increase the Highway capital budget by £0.44 million, funded from a revenue contribution of £0.35 million and an additional £0.09 million of developer and other external contributions to help fund a variety of highway schemes.

c) Increase the capital programme for Safety Fencing by £0.25 million, funded from a revenue contribution from the Highways revenue budget.

d) Increase the Waste capital budget by £0.10 million to fund capital improvements at Household Recycling Centres funded from a revenue contribution from the Waste revenue budget.

e) Increase the ICT capital budget by £0.450 million, funded by a revenue contribution from a one off underspend in the ICT revenue budget, to fund investment in ICT equipment for social workers which will facilitate mobile working.

Cllr Ray Theodoulou, Cabinet Member: Finance and Change, gave an updateon the year end forecast for the 2016/17 County Council’s Revenue and Capital Budgets.

Cllr Theodoulou reported a forecast year end position with an £0.89 million underspend. He said that this had been achieved using the unallocated Social Care Levy and corporate underspends used to offset demand led underspends in the Adult and Children and Families Budgets. It had not been necessary to draw from the Vulnerable Adults and Vulnerable Children Reserves.

Drawing attention to national issues, Cllr Theodoulou informed members that the difficulties from managing pressures placed on council services, particularly in Adult and Children’s Services, were anticipated to continue throughout the year. It was proposed the council should continue it’s focus on these areas.

Cabinet members were invited to summarise some of the financial issues within their individual portfolios and these were noted.