Agenda item

(Director of Resources) To consider the attached report.

The Assistant Director Accountancy, Mr Maddock introduced the report on the Council’s revenue outturn for the Continuing Services Budget (CSB) of the general fund and the consequential movement in balances for 2014/15.

Net expenditure (CSB) for 2014/15 totalled £14.547 million, which was £763,000 (5%) above the original estimate and £223,000 (1.5%) above the revised. When compared to a gross expenditure budget of approximately £74 million, the variances can be restated as 1% and 0.3% respectively.

The main movement between the Original estimate and the Revised and Actual position was the creation of the spend and save reserve which had moved £500,000 from the General Fund Balance into an earmarked reserve set up to fund any initial costs required to achieve on-going CSB savings. The fund would operate in a similar way to the District Development Fund (DDF) in that there would be the ability to move budgetary provision money between years as necessary. 2015/16 would be the first year of operation for this Fund.

The original in year CSB savings figure of £870,000 became an in year savings figure of £1,089,000. There were a number of items added during 2014/15 these included; savings on the refuse contract (£144,000), additional Development Control and Pre-Application income (£120,000), additional rents from shops (£73,000) and a reduction in external Audit fees (£35,000). The level of savings on the waste contract fell short by £81,000 the other three items turned out broadly as expected. Offsetting this was lost income from the market at North Weald Airfield where a further £310,000 was removed from the ongoing budget.

Net District Development Fund expenditure was expected to be £1,863,000 in the original estimate and £1,122,000 in the revised estimate. In the event the DDF showed net expenditure of £249,000. This was £1,614,000 below the original and £873,000 below the revised. There were requests for carry forwards totalling £575,000 and these were detailed in the report.

As spending was £873,000 below the revised estimate but carry forwards of £575,000 have been requested, so a net underspend of £298,000 was shown.

The DDF reduced between the Original and Revised position by some £741,000, this was mainly due to new items identified during 2014/15; the main items being additonal housing Benefit overpayments and Council Tax Benefit adjustments and grants (£326,000), additional Development Control income (£120,000), Income from shops (£78,000), slippage on the local plan budget (£91,000) and Building Maintenance (£46,000).

There was a number of items contributing to the underspend of £873,000, such as additional Development Control income over and above that allowed for previously (£103,000); a further receipt relating to the Heritable investment (£100,000) (we now have 98% and are expecting to have 100% back); Slippage relating to Building Maintenance (£123,000); Asset rationalisation (£101,000); the Transformation Programme (£75,000) and NEPP redundancies (£31,000) to name but a few.

The HRA now has a higher balance than expected, but after the last Budget we would need it.

Councillor Angold-Stephens asked how much we were expected to collect in Business Rates to get to 95%. Paragraph 6 of the report said that we would have to pay back £419k odd over the next two years. Mr Maddock replied that technically speaking the £419k was the variance. Of the total, 50% went to the government, we got 40% and then the government got a bit more. So out of the £34million we only get to keep about £3.5million. The appeals deadline had just passed so we should be stable until 2017.

RESOLVED:

(1)  That the provisional 2014/15 revenue out-turn for the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) be noted;

(2)  That as detailed in Appendix D of the report, the carry forward of £575,000 District Development Fund expenditure be noted ; and

(3)  That the carry forward of the £67,000 HRA Service Enhancement Fund expenditure also be noted.