Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 This report presents the latest budget monitoring information for the Authority as a whole for the financial year 2002/2003. The report also includes a number of budget transfer requests that require Council Executive agreement or are reported for information purposes as prescribed by the Budget Management Scheme.

2 RECOMMENDATION

That the Executive:

2.1 Note the expenditure and income position for the Council in the financial year to the end of June and the year end projections detailed in Appendix 1 of this report.

2.2 Approve the virements listed in Appendix 2.

3 THE REPORT

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

3.1 The Budget Management Scheme requires that the Council Executive consider the overall revenue budget monitoring position on a quarterly basis.

3.2 Where overspent, services are expected to seek compensating savings to try and bring budgets back to balance. The Budget Management scheme states that if overspending occurs it must be recovered.

REVENUE BUDGET MONITORING APRIL TO JUNE 2002

3.3 Appendix 1 outlines the Council's current financial position for the 2002/2003 financial year to the end of June 2002 by portfolio. The Appendix shows a projected year-end overspend of £874,000 based on the service monitoring reports prepared to date. Significant areas of over and under spend are highlighted in this report, but further explanations of the reasons for over and under spends in the current year are provided within the notes to Appendix 1.

3.4 Page 1

The most significant part of the overall predicted overspend relates to Property budgets. An overspend of £289,000 on Corporate Estate budgets is anticipated as the costs of Plymouth House have yet to be offset by corresponding savings in the office space released elsewhere in the corporate estate. Property, Building and Administration Services are predicting a year end overspend of £200,000 due to costs involved with implementing Asset Management Planning. Various actions are under way to reduce costs to address this potential deficit and reports are being prepared for the relevant executive members on the problems and solutions.

3.5 Revenues & Benefits are predicting to overspend by £233,000 due to heavy financial commitments being incurred in meeting service delivery problems and the inclusion of savings in their budget which cannot yet be met due to slippage of the programme and the service still being in transition. Forecasts have been reviewed in detail and actions are being implemented to improve performance and control spending.

3.6 The year-end spend on External Audit fees is anticipated to be £153,000 in excess of budget. This is a result of an increased core audit fee partly due to increased work required by the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) program. The overspend also includes a prediction on the amount of fees that will be charged in respect of legality work following questions on the Council's final accounts. It was anticipated in the budget that these would reduce, but this has not happened. This overspend is partly offset by a saving of £97,000 predicted on the Council's Loan debt repayments.

3.7 The first three months of this financial year have produced a strong level of fee income resulting from increased requests for Local Land Searches and Building Regulation approvals. As a result, the Public Protection service is expected to underspend by £100,000 this financial year.

3.8 This report does not include the effects of the recently proposed pay award upon the overall position.

VIREMENT REQUESTS 2002/2003

3.9 Budget Transfers (Virements) requiring Council Executive approval are listed in Appendix 2 together with explanations of why the transfer is necessary.

3.10 Appendix 3 indicates the effect upon Service and Portfolio cash limits if these proposals are approved.

3 CONSULTATION

4.1 This report was sent to Trade Unions on 14^th August 2002.

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