Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 This report presents the monitoring information for the Authority as a whole for the financial year 2007/08 to the end of November 2007. The report also includes a number of virement requests for both revenue and capital that require Council Cabinet agreement or are reported for information purposes as prescribed by the Budget Management Scheme.

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 November and the year end projections detailed in Appendix 3 of this report are noted.

2.4 The 2007/08 virements listed in Appendix 4(i) are approved and the changes in the capital programme listed in Appendix 5(i) are noted.

3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

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

4 COMMUNITY STRATEGY OUTCOMES

4.1 The report concerns the financial management of the Council which underpins implementation of the corporate plan, and hence the delivery of community strategy outcomes.

5 CORPORATE IMPROVEMENT PRIORITIES

5.1 The Annual Financial and Service Planning process allocates scarce resources across services with alignment of these resources towards our corporate improvement priorities as set out in the Corporate Plan. This report monitors how the Council is performing against the financial targets set in February 2007 through the Budget setting report.

6 CPA LINES OF ENQUIRY

6.1 The report provides the Cabinet with information on financial performance against the Council's budget as required under the "Financial Management" Key Line of Enquiry, which is part of the Use of Resources element of the CPA.

7 THE REPORT

7.1 The Budget Management Scheme requires that the Council Cabinet consider the revenue and capital monitoring position on a quarterly basis.

7.2 For revenue, 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.

7.3 Appendix 1 highlights significant areas of over and under spends. Appendix 2 outlines the Council's current revenue financial position for the 2007/08 financial year to the end of November 2007 by cabinet portfolio. At the beginning of the financial year early indications were that there could be a potential overspend of £4,248,000. Following management actions to reduce this overspend, the September Cabinet report indicated a potential year end forecast overspend of £1,928,000. Management have continued with actions to reduce the potential overspends to £615,000, resulting in a greatly improved position. With the exception of Customer Services all services have produced the required savings to bring expenditure back within budget. Customer Services potential overspend has reduced greatly but still remains a risk. Providing the action plans identified by Customer Services are implemented the remaining overspend can be offset by savings in capital financing costs.

7.4 A significant element of the current years potential overspends have been mitigated by one off short term budget solutions. Permanent solutions have been developed as part of the 2008/09 budget proposals thus mitigating ongoing pressures.

7.5 Appendix 3 outlines the Council's current capital financial position for the same period, showing spend to the end of November 2007 totalling £18.75m or 75.4% of profiled spend.

7.6 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. 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.

7.7 Revenue budget virements requiring cabinet approval are listed in Appendix 4(i) together with an explanation of why the virement is necessary.
Appendix 4(ii) indicates the effect upon service and portfolio cash limits if these proposals are approved.

7.8 Revisions to the Budget Management Scheme were approved by the Corporate Audit Committee and Council in November. In future, virements will be reported in the weekly list for Cabinet Member decision, and a listing reported in the quarterly monitoring reports for information/control purposes only.

7.9 Changes to the capital programme are listed in Appendix 5(i), while Appendix 5(ii) provides the updated capital programme allocated by portfolio.

8 RISK MANAGEMENT

8.1 A risk assessment related to the issue and recommendations has been undertaken, in compliance with the Council's decision making risk management guidance.

9 RATIONALE

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

10 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED

10.1 None.

11 CONSULTATION

11.1 Consultation has been carried out with the Leader of The Council, Other B&NES Services, Section 151 Finance Officer, Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer.

12 ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN REACHING THE DECISION

12.1 This report deals with issues of a corporate nature.

13 ADVICE SOUGHT

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