The Head of Finance provided an overview of the role of Budget Panel in its scrutiny.

During and following the presentation, the Head of Finance responded to questions from members.

There were no apologies from the panel.

The Portfolio Holder, Councillor Watkin, had sent his apologies that he was unable to attend.

There were no disclosures of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 February 2017 to be submitted and signed. 

The minutes of the meeting held on 21 February 2017 were submitted and signed.

Report of the Head of Finance

The Panel received the report of the Director of Finance.  The report informed Budget Panel and Cabinet of the revenue and capital outturns for the financial year 2016/17.

The net revenue outturn was £17.304 million, a favourable variance, compared to the January revision of the budget, of £3,000.  An additional £411,000 over what had been budgeted had gone to the reserves.  Accrued income of £284,000 from the Riverwell project was included in this figure as well as £75,000 additional parking income.  Income from parking schemes was ringfenced to be spent on car parking expenditure and was added to the CPZ reserve. There had also been £52,000 for the Community Infrastructure Levy reserve.

The report contained details of the carry forwards which amounted to almost £900,000.  These were for projects which were not yet completed in 2016/17 and carrying forward the unspent budget would avoid the projects incurring budget pressures in the current financial year. These were proposed by Leadership Team, ratified by Budget Panel and agreed by Cabinet.

The capital budget had been revised to £48.725 million in January of which £15.917 million had been re-phased into the later years of the Medium Term Financial Strategy.  The outturn was an unfavourable variance of £219,000 which was funded by additional grants and transfers from reserves.

The procedures for challenging and agreeing carry forwards were outlined and strict rules were in place governing these. The re-phasing of the capital programme also required confirmation.  The amount in question was a concern but capital re-phasing was quite common for most councils.  One beneficial outcome of this was additional funds available to invest in the short-term.

The revenue outturn was broken down by service and there was a change to how recharges for support services were represented as compared to previous years. This gave a clearer view of how each service was spending their budgets. Part of the variance between the original and the revised budgets could be accounted for by the inclusion of last year’s carry forwards.

A suggestion was made that the Finance Digest, like the Statement of Accounts, could include a glossary of terms. 

The panel discussed how the council was performing in its project management and the impact on the budgets. There could be a tendency amongst officers and councillors to underestimate the time and resources required to complete a project. The level of resources needed for gaining the requisite legal and financial advice as well as procurement processes needed sufficient consideration in project plans and budgets. The council’s project management in this area was improving and more realism was important. The various boards which oversaw and scrutinised the projects were discussed.  These boards included a finance projects officer who had input on the project budgets and profiling. The impact of the resulting carry forwards was that there were additional funds to invest but clear guidance needed to be given about when the funds were required for the project. This could be more problematic when borrowing was involved but this was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Budget Panel is invited to approve the 2017/18 work programme and to suggest any additional items for discussion