Issue - meetings

Division/Wards Affected: All

Purpose: The purpose of this report is to provide Members with information on the revenue outturn position of the Authority at the end of reporting period 4, which represents the financial outturn position for the 2016/17 financial year.

This report will also be considered by Select Committees as part of their responsibility to:

•        Assess whether effective budget monitoring is taking place.

•        Monitor the extent to which budgets are spent in accordance with agreed budget and policy framework.

•        Challenge the reasonableness of projected over or underspends.

•        Monitor the achievement of predicted efficiency gains or progress in relation to savings proposals.

Author: Mark Howcroft – Assistant Head of Finance; Dave Jarrett – Senior Accountant Business Support

Contact Details: markhowcroft@monmouthshire.gov.uk

That Cabinet consider a net revenue outturn unspend of £884,000, an improvement of £805,000 on quarter 3 outturn predictions.

That Cabinet consider a capital outturn spend of £40.03m against a revised budget of £40.98million, after proposed slippage of £17.5 million, resulting in a net underspend of £951k.

That Cabinet consider and approve the £17.5m capital slippage recommended (detailed in appendix 2), paying attention to those schemes described in para 3.3.6 where slippage has been requested by the service manager but is not being recommended to slip (£198k).

That Cabinet considers the use of reserves proposed in para 3.4.1,

That Cabinet supports the apportionment of general underspend in supplementing reserve levels as described in para 3.4.3 below, i.e.:

Priority Investment Fund £570k

Redundancy & Pension Reserve £114k

IT Transformation Reserve £100k

Capital Receipts Generation Reserve £100k

Total £884k

That Cabinet note that the low level of earmarked reserves will severely reduce the flexibility the Council has in meeting the challenges of scare resources going forward.

That Cabinet note the significant reduction in the overall school balance at the end of 2016/17 and supports the continuing work with schools to ensure that the Council’s Fairer Funding scheme requirements are met, and that the overall schools balance remains positive in 2017/18.