Agenda item

The Strategic Director of Resources introduced the report and confirmed that the draft accounts had already been published a month ahead of schedule. The report covered the General Fund Outturn, Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Outturn, Reserves and Capital Project. The Strategic Director of Resources highlighted two of the decisions the Committee was being asked to make which were regards the business rates pool and the Capital Programme budget. He drew Committees attention to the Summary of the General Fund Outturn position in table 2, and confirmed that there was an overall underspend of £786,000 and listed the main reasons for the underspend.

The Strategic Director of Resources explained that as the Section 151 Officer it was his responsibility to allocate any under or overspend and was asking Members to consider his recommendations listed in Table 3. The Strategic Director of Resources also directed the Committee to table 4 in section 5.9. He explained the collection fund smoothing to the Committee stating that the government funding for business rates discounts arrived in the last financial year however the collection fund balance wouldn’t unwind until the current financial year, so there is a timing difference.

The Accountancy Manager ran through the HRA report and directed members towards table 7 which set out the underspend of the HRA of £373,000. The committee was advised that the proposal for the underspend included £234,000 to be placed in the transformation fund and for £139,000 to be placed in the retrofit reserve as shown in table 8 and paragraph 8.3. The Accountancy Manager also brought the Committees attention to the HRA Earmarked reserves in Section 9 and the HRA general reserves in Section 10.

The Accountancy Manager introduced the Capital Programme and confirmed that there was a £12.7million spend against a budget of 22.7 million, this was largely due to timing differences as out of the £10million not spent in year £8.7million was linked to the slippage requested to roll forward into 2021/22.

In response to questions from Councillor Davies the Strategic Director of Resources explained that the Brexit funding had not been used and that there had been 3 grant allocations from Government to support the cost of Brexit and it would need to be decided where to put this funding. The Strategic Director of Resources also acknowledged the Council had received substantial support from the Central Government but noted that there was still no information regarding funding after March 2022.

Councillor Pearcy asked whether the dispersal of the money shown in Appendix H was spread equally distributed across the district including the more rural areas. The Strategic Director of Resources explained that expenditure was not looked at on a ward by ward basis. If there was something specific within the rural areas that needed to be targeted, then that could be done however, it would have needed to be addressed during the planning stage.

Councillor Turner asked where the green homes LADS funding had come from, the Accountancy Manager confirmed it had been received in the form of Government grants and that an extension into 2022 has been allowed for the unallocated funding from 2021. Councillor Craig asked whether the Council could advertise the grants so that more residents who have problems with insulation could apply. The Strategic Director of Resources advised that there were strict rules as to where the funding would be used but he would pass the comments on to the Housing Renewal Manager.

Councillor Tucker drew attention to the underspend listed for the disabled facilities grant scheme and questioned whether this was a result of Covid. The Accountancy Manager confirmed there were delays due to Covid and the teams were working with County and other agencies to clear the backlog. She also explained that it is an opportunity based fund and therefore they have little control over what is spent, if more money was required in any year they would be able to claim it from the Better Care Fund.

Councillor Brine Proposed and Councillor Braun Seconded.

Councillor Davies commented that he was impressed with the improvements on the Ubico contract and raised one concern over the savings accrued from vacancies, he stated that this meant that some departments may have been understaffed or may not have been able to complete pieces of work due to the vacancy.

The Chair, Councillor Cornell, supported the report and acknowledged the work of Officers who had been able to continue delivering on projects despite the challenges.

Councillor Brine expressed his gratitude to the teams who were able to distribute grant funding quickly to provide support to local businesses.

Councillor Braun thanked the finance team for a detailed report and presentation and encouraged new Councillors to look at the spends relevant to their Committees. She welcomed the Climate Change reserve which would allow the Council to look to the future, she was keen to see the carbon impact of future projects being considered.

On being put to the vote, the motion was carried unanimously.