Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Chief Finance Officer.

The Chief Finance Officer presented the report for the Overview of General Fund Revenue Budget for the first quarter, which advised Members of the overall projected financial position of the General Fund Revenue Budgets for the 2019/20 financial year after three months. He highlighted that the reports had been split into the HRA and General Fund reports to make them more appropriate to provide information to Members and that the report also sought approval of additional expenditure for the financial year.

The Chief Finance Officer discussed the financial summary, which predicted that there would be an under spend of £120,500 against a revised budget of £19,966,520 and included the supplementary budgets of £1,394,660, which had been approved by Council in July 2019 for the first quarter. The General Fund budget was on track against the original budget projections. The projected year-end balance would be £3,822,992, which was above the £3 million minimum requirement set by Council in February 2019 and there were no significant issues to highlight in the report. 

He referred Members to the request for approval for a supplementary budget totalling £493,930, which would be added to the 2019/20 budget and would be financed from CIL, earmarked reserves and the General Fund working balance. He noted that there would be a reduction of £3,744,492 to the projected General Fund working balance as a result. It was explained that the term virement was used for the transfer of funds from one financial account to another and that any transfers of budgets above £40,000 or between Directors’ areas of responsibility would require Council approval.

The Chief Finance Officer explained that the Fair Funding and Business Rate reviews had been delayed by Central Government for a year and that as a result of the work already done, there was a likelihood of one off Funds being added to the General Fund reserves in next year’s budget.

In response to questions from Members, the Chief Finance Officer explained that

·         There would be savings made during the financial year from surplus income which would be transferred to the General Fund reserves to support savings required for 2020/21;

·         The term for ‘Capitalisation of Officer time’ was used when charging for a person’s time in respect of building assets.

·         There would be a likely impact to the net income from car parking, following the introduction of the Carbon Neutral City Policy, which was being considered by Senior Management as part of the ongoing project;

·         The net figure for the Financial Services team would show a saving for the first half of the year while using agency staff. There was a national issue for recruiting qualified accountants based on public sector salaries. Currently two roles had been successfully filled, but additional recruitment agencies were being considered and the option for market supplementing salaries was being addressed;

·         Debt write offs were legitimate debts that could not be collected and any error amounts would be cancelled. The total Council tax bill write offs would impact only 8% on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32