Issue - meetings

The report presents the revenue and capital outturn for 2014/15, highlighting an underspend of £54,000. This represents a significant achievement in the context of the government’s public sector deficit recovery plan which resulted in a revenue savings requirement of over £10 million for 2014/15.

The report refers to requests to carry forward specific revenue budget items to 2015/16 and to write-off revenue overspends where recovery in future years would have an adverse impact on continuing service delivery.

The report also refers to requests to re-phase specific capital budget items to 2015/16 and to remove net capital underspends.

The Chair invited Councillor Robin Moss to make a statement.

Councillor Moss commented suggested that the Cabinet should resist calls from the Central Government in selling assets as the Council has been well served in income from heritage services.  He also said that the report had indicated that housing benefit subsidy is underspent by £387k and hoped that this was not an indication that subsidy had not been advertised properly.

The Chair invited Councillor Andy Furse to make an ad-hoc statement.

Councillor Furse pointed to bullet points 1.6, 1.12, 1.20 of the appendix in the report and asked for updates on issues highlighted in those bullet points.

Councillor Charles Gerrish paid a tribute to the late Councillor David Bellotti for his work over the past four years as previous Cabinet Member for Finances. This report provides information about the Council’s financial performance against its revenue and capital budgets in 2014/15.

This report enables Cabinet to review:

•  Requests for write-off of overspends

•  Requests for carry forward of underspends

•  Suggested transfers to earmarked reserves

The report identifies that after carry forwards and transfers to reserves, the Council underspent by £54,000.  He highlighted the main areas contributing to the underspend and over achievement of income position, such as Heritage Services’ overachievement of income of £512,000 and IT Service underspend of £476,000.

Councillor Gerrish moved the recommendations.

Councillor Patrick Anketell-Jones seconded the proposal.

Councillor Anketell-Jones said that the Council would continue to meet its reserves strategy as outlined in the budget report to the Council in February.  He was pleased to see that the Heritage income had increased due to higher visitor numbers and their additional retail spend, and suggested that the Council should continue to look at ways of generating new income in this way.

On a motion from Councillor Charles Gerrish, seconded by Councillor Patrick Anketell-Jones it was:

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:

1)  The revenue budget outturn underspend of £54,000 for 2014/15 is noted.

2)  The revenue carry forward proposals and write-off requests listed in the report are approved.

3)  Transfers to Earmarked Reserves are agreed as set out.

4)  The revenue virements for 2014/15 are approved.

5)  The resulting reserves position shown in the report is noted and that unearmarked reserves remain at the target level of £10.5m (excluding Invest to Save drawdowns).

6)  The provisional outturn of the 2014/15 capital programme, and the funding as laid out in the report, are noted.

7)  The capital re-phasing and write-off of net underspends are approved.

8)  The adjustments to the 2014/15 to 2019/20 capital programme, and the final capital programme for 2014/15 are noted.