Agenda item

(Director of Resources) to consider the attached report.

The Assistant Director Accountancy, Mr Maddock introduced the financial monitoring report on income and expenditure for quarter 3.

The Panel noted that:

·         The salaries schedule showed an underspend of £164,000 (or 1.1%). This time last year the variance was 1.2%. With the implementation of the new pay award the underspend would reduce going forward;

·         The Governance Directorate was showing and underspend of £77,000, relating mainly to the Estates Division;

·         The Resources Directorate showed an underspend of £75,000 relating to a number of areas, but mainly Revenues;

·         Development Control income at month 9 was going particularly well. Fees and charges were £82,000 higher than the budget to date and pre-application charges were £16,000 higher;

·         Building Control income was £18,000 higher than the budgeted figure at the end of the third quarter;

·         Local Land Charges income was in line with revised expectations at the end of December and had continued the upward trend of recent months;

·         Hackney Carriage income was up by £2,000 and other licensing in line with the budget;

·         The income from MOT’s were in line with the revised position. Cabinet had determined in October that the service would be re-located to a new depot at Oakwood Hill but would scale back its operations with the service breaking even;

·         Things had improved on the parking income receipts as the teething problems experienced with the new cash collector were being overcome. Income was now slightly above the revised budget;

·         The Housing Repairs Fund showed an underspend of £79,000. The full year’s budget was likely to be fully spent;

·         This was the second year for the new Business Rates Retention Scheme, whereby a proportion of rates collected were retained by the Council. There were two aspects to this monitoring, firstly changes in the rating list and secondly the collection of cash;

·         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. Therefore, effective collection was important as this can generate a cash flow advantage to the Council. At the end of December the total collected was £27,551,925 and payments out were £24,304,499; meaning the Council was holding £3,247,426 of cash and so the Council’s overall cash position was benefitting from the effective collection of non-domestic rates.

In all, it would be a surprise if the Council showed an underspend this year.

Councillor Mohindra queried the comments on industrial estates, wanting to know if £300k was more than expected as the commentary indicated the income was higher. Mr Maddock said that he would investigate and get back to him.

Councillor Whitehouse asked if income on off street parking was getting better. He was told that yes it was catching up, the income increase was due to the increase in pay and display charges.

Councillor Watson wondered if the increase in the income from Building Control and Development Control was due to the lack of a local plan and was the timetable for this slipping further. Councillor Philip said he did not believe that people were not putting in planning applications due to a lack of a local plan. The majority of the applications were for household changes. We still had the existing Local Plan in place, so it was not right to say that we did not have one. He noted that updates on this would be coming out soon, but they did not wish to rush this as they needed a good evidence base. But, he agreed that these figures needed to be kept under observation. Councillor Watson noted that the budget for forward planning had been revised downwards and re-profiled. Mr Maddock said that a substantial part had been moved into 2016/17.  Councillor Watson asked if this could be brought back to the next meeting.

RESOLVED:

That the Panel noted the revenue and capital monitoring report for the third quarter of 2014/15.