Agenda item

The Committee considered a report that set out the financial monitoring position for the period April 2016 to January 2017.

The report summarised the projected outturn position for the Council’s general fund revenue account, based on actual and accrued data for this period. At the end of January 2017, officers were projecting a reduction in net expenditure on the general fund revenue account of £3.03 million (representing 1.98% of the Council’s gross budget, or 7.29% of its original net budget). This was the result of a combination of factors, which included a reduction in employee expenditure across all services, an increase in planning fees, higher than budgeted income from parking activities and additional rental income arising from the asset investment strategy.  The Council had also received higher than budgeted interest receipts from its investments.

A surplus on the Housing Revenue Account, due to lower staffing and repairs and maintenance costs would enable a projected transfer of £11.76 million to the new build reserve and reserve for future capital at year-end. This transfer was £263,000 higher than budgeted.

Officers were making progress against significant capital projects on the approved programme as outlined in section 7 of the report.  The Council was now expected to spend £54.78 million on its capital schemes by the end of the financial year.

The Council’s underlying need to borrow to finance the capital programme was expected to be £40.79 million by 31 March 2017, against an estimated position of £80.81 million. The lower underlying need to borrow was a result of slippage on both the approved and provisional capital programme, as detailed in the report.

The Council held £146.3 million of investments and £232.4 million of external borrowing as at 31 January 2017, which included £194 million of Housing Revenue Account loans.  Officers confirmed that the Council had complied with its Prudential indicators in the period, which were set in February 2016 as part of the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy, with the exception of the upper limit on variable interest rates.  This was due to having more variable rate debt than investments due to using more fixed deposits than variable rate investments.

Having considered the report, the Committee

RESOLVED: That the results of the Council’s financial monitoring for the period April 2016 to January 2017, be noted.