Agenda item

The report presents the revenue and capital outturn for 2016/17, highlighting a net revenue overspend of £2.221m after allowing for proposed carry forwards. The overspend has increased since the last report, which forecast an overspend of £1.039m based on monitoring for the year to December 2016, mainly due to the closure of four care homes during the year, which required supporting the move of existing residents to new placements at significant additional cost, as well as the continuing cost pressures within Children’s statutory services. The report highlights that the majority of the £12.6m of budgeted savings and additional income generation have been achieved during the year.

The report refers to requests to carry forward specific revenue budget items to 2017/18 and to write-off revenue overspends where recovery in future years would have an adverse impact on continuing service delivery. It is proposed that the overspend is funded by appropriate drawdowns from specific earmarked reserves held as contingency against in year spending pressures and includes use of the specific transitional grant funding provided by the government and set aside by the Council at the start of the financial year.

The report also refers to requests to re-phase specific capital budget items to 2017/18 and to remove net capital underspends.

Councillor Andrew Furse expressed his concerns that the revenue budget outturn overspend for 2016/17 was £2.221m and felt that the present performance was damaging the credibility of the Council.

Councillor Charles Gerrish said that this report had provided information about the Council’s financial performance against its revenue and capital budgets in 2016/17.  The report had identified that after allowing for carry forwards, the Council overspent by £2.221m, which to give some context, represents less than 1% of gross budgeted spend excluding schools. It was proposed that the overspend is funded by drawdowns from both the Revenue Budget Contingency (£1.155m) and the Adult Social Care Reserve (£1.066m). The 2016/17 revenue budget had included a requirement for the delivery of £12.644m of savings and additional income generation of which over 90% were achieved during the year.

The ongoing implications arising from the year end position would be considered as part of the 2017/18 budget monitoring process, including appropriate mitigating actions.

The capital spend in 2016/17 was £53.910m against a budget of £78.591m giving a variance of £24.681m, primarily reflecting the delivery time to complete projects moving into future financial periods. Of this variance, £23.932m was requested for carry forward to 2017/18 to cover re-phased costs of capital projects.

Councillor Charles Gerrish moved the recommendations as printed.

Councillor Paul May seconded the motion by thanking Councillor Charles Gerrish and the officers on the report.  Councillor Paul May also said that the Council was in difficult situation, with even more difficult task to achieve savings. 

The rest of the Cabinet Members highlighted financial pressures within their portfolios.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that the Cabinet agreed to:

2.1  The revenue budget outturn overspend of £2.221m for 2016/17 as set out in Appendix 2 is noted.

2.2  The revenue carry forward proposals and write-off requests listed in the tables in Appendix 4 are approved.

2.3  Transfers from Earmarked Reserves to fund the revenue overspend are agreed as set out in Appendix 1 paragraph 1.8.

2.4  The revenue virements for 2016/17 reported for information in Appendix 6(i) are noted.

2.5  The resulting reserves position shown in Appendix 1 paragraph 1.10 is noted and that unearmarked reserves remain at the target level of £13.5m (excluding Invest to Save drawdowns).

2.6  The provisional outturn of the 2016/17 capital programme in Appendix 7, and the funding as laid out in the table in Appendix 1 Paragraph 1.20, is noted.

2.7  The capital rephasing and write-off of net underspends as listed in Appendix 8 are approved. This reflects the outturn spend position on projects against final budgets as detailed in Appendix 9.

2.8  The adjustments to the 2016/17 to 2021/22 capital programme as recorded in Appendix 10, and the final capital programme for 2016/17 in Appendix 9 are noted.