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 for the financial year up to 31 March 2018 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.

The 2017/18 financial year had ended with an overall net surplus of £1,644,790. This represented a movement of 4,132,405 compared to the budgeted deficit of £2, 487,615 with, most notably, £2,700,000 attributable to delays with the St Loyes Extra Care Scheme. 

A projected under-spend of £3,667,716 had previously been reported to Scrutiny Committee - People as part of the quarterly budget monitoring updates. The variances in the final quarter of the financial year had therefore resulted in further savings of £464,689, of which Executive approval to carry forward £335,000 into 2018/19 would be sought. 

The total amount of HRA capital expenditure for 2017/18 was £6,264,876, which equated to 84.5% of the revised approved capital programme.

In respect of a Committee Member’s questions submitted in advance of the meeting, the Planned Repairs Lead reported a total budget variance of over £200,000 in the out-turn compared with the expectation three months earlier and that this reflected a lower than expected number of empty properties such as at Rennes House and Laings properties and delays in the rollout of the Universal Credit Full Service. Rental income from dwellings was monitored by officers on a fortnightly basis, but the total for the year was not fully known until the accounts were closed due to the impact of delays in planned capital works and the fortnight free periods late in the financial year - one at Christmas and one at the end of March. For this reason, the rental income from dwellings was reported to committee as a budgetary risk throughout the year, as a minor percentage budget variance resulted in a significant amount of money against a £19 million budget. Regarding the forecast variance of £20,000 at quarter three, the Technical Accounting Manager advised that this figure related to rent from garages rather than rental income from dwellings, as this could be quantified with reasonable certainty.

The Planned Repairs Lead provided updated statistics on the backlog of repairs. The contract had 18 months to run and he and the Director (BA) confirmed that officers were in regular contact with representatives of Mears in monitoring the work and that a meeting had recently been held with the Regional Director of Mears. There was a shortage of relevant skilled workers in Exeter and Mears had recently sent one of their teams based in Milton Keynes to assist in reducing the backlog.

In respect of the sheltered housing at Nelson Close, Topsham, the Local Member stated that residents had been concerned about maintenance issues and the Planned Repairs Lead undertook to investigate this further as well as assess conditions generally on site. He also confirmed that a focus group meeting had been held at the Nelson Close community room in April when residents had raised a number of issues in relation to repairs and maintenance, an increased presence on site of the Police Community Support Officers etc. As a result, an 18 point action plan had been drawn up and repairs etc. were now being instigated.

The Director (BA) advised Members that savings identified in housing assets and training in respect of the housing management system were due to post vacancies and staff recruited who had yet to start. Responding to a Member, she undertook to ensure that timetable details were provided on the four HRA estates within the estate regeneration programme.

The Technical Accounting Manager advised that the report design was to be revised following on from a recent meeting of the Financial Reporting Task and Finish Working Group.

People - Scrutiny Committee noted the report.