Agenda item

(Director of Resources) to consider the attached report.

Mr Maddock introduced the quarterly Financial Monitoring report. The report provided a comparison between the original estimate for the period ended 30 June 2016 and the actual expenditure or income as applicable. 

The Committee had within its terms of reference to consider financial monitoring reports on key areas of income and expenditure. This was the first quarterly report for 2016/17 and covers the period from 1 April 2016 to 30 June 2016.

Revenue Budgets

The meeting noted that:

·         The salaries schedule showed an underspend of £202,000 or 3.6%. This was the same in percentage terms as this time last year;

·         Resources showed the largest underspend of £78,000 which related to Revenues and Housing Benefits;

·         Neighbourhoods and Communities were both showing underspends of £53,000. The former related to Forward Planning and Grounds Maintenance and the latter to the Housing Works Unit;

·         Development Control income at month 3 was continuing the recent upward trend;

·         Building Control income was £38,000 higher than the budgeted figure;

·         Public Hire licence income and other licensing was above expectations;

·         The income from MOTs carried out by Fleet Operations was £11,000 below expectations, affected by the uncertainty around the relocation to Oakwood Hill. The move has now happened and a new Fleet Operations manager appointed;

·         Car Parking income was £30,000 below the estimates as at month 3. By late August income had reached and even exceeded expected levels;

·         Local Land Charge income was £3,000 below expectations;

·         Expenditure and income relating to Bed and Breakfast placements was on the increase. Some growth had been allowed for within the 2016/17 budget but it looked unlikely that this would be sufficient;

·         An overspend was showing on both Refuse Collection and Recycling;

·         The Housing Repairs Fund showed an underspend of £340,000, as well as underspends showing on both Planned Maintenance and Voids work; and

·         Income from Development Control, Building Control and probably Car Parking looked likely to exceed the budget. Others were less certain.

Councillor Bedford asked that congratulations be sent from this Committee to the Development Control and Building Control teams for achieving the higher incomes.

Councillor Whitehouse said that the increase in the use of Bed and Breakfast was expensive; have we looked at alternative solutions? Mr Hall, the Director of Communities, noted that expenditure had gone up but so had income. Also, we no longer get as much back from the Government as we used to. Officers were looking into a number of options for handling homelessness and would be reporting back to the Communities Select Committee in the near future. Part of this report would be looking at building on the North Weald Airfield site.

Councillor Bedford asked about the amount of the housing stock awaiting renovations and re-letting. Mr Hall said that the Communities Select Committee generally received these figures, but he thought that generally it was between 1 and 2% of the housing stock. They were always looking at ways to reduce their void periods as they did not want to have empty properties.

Councillor Patel noted that Development Control had higher applications than usual could not this extra money be used to clear any backlog that has built up. Mr Maddock said he would speak to the Assistant Director of Development Management about this.

Business Rates

The meeting noted that:

·         This is the fourth year of operation for the Business Rates Retention Scheme whereby a proportion of rates collected were retained by the Council;

·         The resources available from Business Rates for funding purposes was set in the January preceding the financial year in question. Once these estimates were set the funding available for the year was fixed;

·         For 2016/17 the funding retained by the authority after allowing for the Collection Fund deficit from 2015/16 was £3,435,000. This exceeded the government baseline of £3,050,000 by some £385,000. The actual position for 2016/17 would not be determined until May 2017;

·         Cash collection was important as the Council was required to make payments to the Government and other authorities based on their share of the rating list. These payments are fixed and have to be made even if no money was collected; and

·         At the end of June the total collected was £10,206,011 and payments out were £8,636,746, meaning the Council was holding £1,569,265 of cash and so the Council’s overall cash position was benefitting from the effective collection of non-domestic rates.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee noted the revenue and capital financial monitoring report for the first quarter of 2016/17.