Agenda item

The report presents the revenue and capital outturn for 2015/16, highlighting an underspend of £270,000. This represents a significant achievement in the context of the continuing government’s public sector deficit recovery plan which resulted in a revenue savings requirement of over £9.7 million for 2015/16.

The report refers to requests to carry forward specific revenue budget items to 2016/17 and to write-off revenue overspends where recovery in future years would have an adverse impact on continuing service delivery. The Council underspent by £270,000, after these carry forwards and transfers to reserves.

The report also refers to requests to re-phase specific capital budget items to 2016/17 and to remove net capital underspends.  The impact of this will be considered in the 2016/17 Capital Review.

Councillor Charles Gerrish said that this report had provided information about the Council’s financial performance against its revenue and capital budgets in 2015/16.  The report had identified that after carry forwards and transfers to reserves, the Council had underspent by £270,000. This had represented a significant achievement in the context of the continuing government’s public sector deficit recovery plan which had resulted in a revenue savings requirement of over £9.7 million for 2015/16. In addition to this, a further £1.695m of in-year rebasing was actioned removing the requirement to use reserves to balance the 2015/16 budget.  The capital spend in 2015/16 was £39.999m against a budget of £61.455m giving a variance of £21.456m, primarily reflecting the delivery time to complete projects moving into future financial periods. Of this variance, £20.296m was requested for carry forward to 2016/17 to cover re-phased costs of capital projects.

Councillor Charles Gerrish moved the recommendations.

Councillor Paul Myers seconded the motion by saying that this was a significant achievement and a testament to this administration’s financial prudence.  Councillor Myers paid tributes to Councillor Gerrish and officers for this report. 

RESOLVED (unanimously) the Cabinet agreed that:

1.  The revenue budget outturn underspend of £270,000 for 2015/16 is noted.

2.  The revenue carry forward proposals and write-off requests are approved.

3.  Transfers to Earmarked Reserves are agreed.

4.  The revenue virements for 2015/16 are approved.

5.  The resulting reserves position 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 2015/16 capital programme, and the funding as laid out in the report is noted.

7.  The capital rephasing and write-off of net underspends are approved.

8.  The adjustments to the 2015/16 to 2020/21 capital programme, and the final capital programme for 2015/16 are noted.