Agenda item

To consider the report of the Chief Finance Officer.

The Technical Accounting Manager advised Members of any major differences, by management unit between the approved budget and the outturn forecast for the first nine months of the financial year up to 31 December 2017 in respect of the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and the Council’s new build schemes. An outturn update in respect of the HRA Capital Programme was also incorporated in the report in order to help provide a comprehensive financial update in respect of the Housing Revenue Account.

During this period, the total budget variances indicated that there would be a net surplus of £1,180,101 in 2017/18. This represented a significant movement of £3,667,716 compared to the budgeted deficit of £2,487,615 for 2017/18 with, most notably, £2,700,000 attributable to delays with the St Loyes Extra Care scheme. This meant that the HRA was forecast to transfer over £1 million into its Working Balance, rather than taking £2.5 million out of its Working Balance, at the end of the financial year.

The current HRA Capital Programme showed a total forecast spend of £7,414,521 compared the £10,497,645 revised programme, a decrease of £3,083,124.

The Chair reported that the Financial Reporting Working Group had met and reviewed the financial reports ahead of their presentation to Scrutiny Committees and that he had subsequently put a number of questions to officers for reporting to this meeting. In respect of these, the following responses were provided:-

·         certain vacant posts in Housing Assets and Council Own Build had been covered using temporary arrangements, as recruitment to the vacant posts was pending the outcomes of the Housing Quality Network review of the Assets team which completed in December 2017 and the completion of the stock condition survey. These posts had now been filled and there were no longer multiple vacancies. The posts were necessary as an extensive level of capital works were planned, to the value of £12 million in 2018/19 and £37 million over the next 5 years; and

·         an employers’ liability insurance claim had been settled by the Council and related to a former council employee.  Both the Portfolio Holder for Health and Wellbeing, Communities and Sport and the Planned Repairs Lead enlarged on health and safety precautions that would be in place for the re-development of the Bus Station site in order to manage exposure to asbestos.

The Planned Repairs Lead updated Members on progress with an extensive procurement programme still taking place and the Director (BA), in response to a Member’s query, advised that any identified risks within the housing service were included on the Housing Risk Register, which fed into the Corporate Risk Register. In respect of the filling of posts, she also confirmed that agency staff were only used in extremis and that the Council had been successful in recruiting to the permanent posts.

Responding to a Member, the Portfolio Holder for the HRA agreed that the lack of sufficient Central Government funding and the imposition of various controls was a significant contributory factor to the nation’s housing crises and that this Council continued to make representations to Government on this issue, emphasising that it had serious ambitions to provide more homes, including social housing. She also highlighted the inequitable restriction on the use of Right to Buy receipts in accordance with the One-for-One Replacement agreement, which sets out the strict criteria for retaining and spending the receipts.  A detailed report would be submitted to a future meeting of this Committee and Executive in respect of the St Loyes Extra Care Scheme, which included the use of retained right-to-buy receipts towards the financing of the project.

People Scrutiny Committee noted the report.