Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 This report presents the financial monitoring information for the Authority as a whole for the financial year 2009/10 to the end of January 2010.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 Strategic Directors should continue to work towards managing within budget in the current year for their respective service areas, and to manage below budget where possible by not committing unnecessary expenditure, through tight budgetary control.

2.2 This year's revenue budget position as shown in Appendix 2 is noted.

2.3 The capital expenditure position for the Council in the financial year to the end of January and the year end projections detailed in Appendix 3 of this report are noted.

2.4 The revenue virements listed for approval in Appendix 4(i) are agreed.

2.5 The changes in the capital programme listed in Appendix 5(i) are noted.

2.6 The additions to the 2010/11 Capital Programme as detailed in Appendix 6 are approved.

2.7 £300,000 be allocated from the Recession Reserve to Customer Services to help offset the impact of the recession on income budgets, as described in 5.8 below,

3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 The financial implications are contained within the body of the report.

4 CORPORATE PRIORITIES

5 THE REPORT

5.1 The Budget Management Scheme requires that the Cabinet consider the revenue and capital monitoring position four times per year.

5.2 For revenue, where overspent, services are expected to seek compensating savings to try and bring budgets back to balance.

5.3 Appendix 1 highlights significant areas of forecast over and under spends. Appendix 2 outlines the Council's current revenue financial position for the 2009/10 financial year to the end of January 2010 by Cabinet Portfolio. The current forecast outturn position is an underspend of 0.35% or £0.445m. This is an improvement from the previous monitoring figures reported to 3^rd February 2010 Cabinet, when the position was a forecast £0.456 overspend (0.36%). Details of specific carry forwards have yet to be considered in some areas.

5.4 Appendix 3 outlines the current position for the 2009/10 Capital programme, currently forecasting spend of £91.2m which is £0.4m less that the revised budget of £91.6m. The revised budget takes into account additions to the programme along with the rephasing reductions approved by Cabinet in February. The total programme expenditure forecast to 2013/14 is £468.8m which is £12m or 2.5% less than the budget. The total programme may increase further before the end of March as more certainty is established over funding and approval of projects.

5.5 The Council's financial position, along with its financial management arrangements and controls are fundamental to continuing to plan and provide services in a managed way, particularly in light of the medium term financial challenge. Close monitoring of the financial situation provides information on new risks and pressures in service areas, and appropriate management actions are then identified and agreed to manage and mitigate those risks.

5.6 Revenue budget virements which require cabinet approval are listed in Appendix 4(i). Technical budget adjustments are shown in Appendix 4(i) for information purposes.

5.7 Previously approved changes to the capital programme are listed in Appendix 5(i), while Appendix 5(ii) provides the updated capital programme allocated by Portfolio. Appendix 6 lists additions to the 2010/11 capital programme which were presented in the February budget report as italic items for information. Approval by Cabinet is requested for these items.

5.8 The Council set up a recession reserve in February 2009 of £685,000. In addition, and in line with the Council resolution, subsequent allocations of Local Authority Business Growth Incentive grant (LABGI) have been added, giving a total of £1.061m. There is a separate Economic Downturn report on the agenda for this Cabinet meeting (E2105), which details proposals for the use of the remainder of this reserve. One of these is a virement to allocate £300,000 to Customer Services to help offset the impact of the recession on income budgets, which is recommended for Cabinet approval in 2.7 above.

6 RISK MANAGEMENT

6.1 The substance of this report is part of the Council's risk management process. The key risks in the Council's budget are assessed annually by each Strategic Director, with these risks re-assessed on a monthly basis as part of the budget monitoring process.

7 EQUALITIES

7.1 This report provides information about the financial performance of the Council and therefore no specific equalities impact assessment has been carried out on the report.

8 RATIONALE

8.1 The report is presented as part of the reporting of financial management and budgetary control required by the Council.

9 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED

9.1 None

10 CONSULTATION

10.1 Consultation has been carried out with the Deputy Leader of The Council & Cabinet Member for Resources, Strategic Directors, Section 151 Finance Officer, Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer.

11 ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN REACHING THE DECISION

11.1 This report deals with issues of a corporate nature.

12 ADVICE SOUGHT

12.1 The Council's Monitoring Officer (Council Solicitor) and Section 151 Officer will have had the opportunity to input to this report and have cleared it for publication.