Issue - meetings

To consider the attached report and the Statutory Statement of Accounts 2016/17 being submitted to the Audit and Governance Committee on 18 September 2017.

The Chairman of the Audit and Governance Committee will report orally on that Committee’s consideration of and recommendations regarding the Statutory Statement of Accounts 2016/17.

Councillor J Knapman, Chairman of the Audit and Governance Committee.

Councillor J Knapman advised that the Statutory Statement of Accounts for 2016/17 had been considered by the Audit and Governance Committee and were recommended to Council.

Report as first moved ADOPTED

            RESOLVED:

            That the Statutory Statement of Accounts for 2016/17 be adopted.

(Director of Resources) To consider the attached report (AGC-006-2017/18).

The Director of Resources, Mr Palmer noted that one of the key roles of this Committee was scrutinising the annual Statutory Statement of Accounts. All Members of the Council would have the opportunity to debate the accounts at Full Council and part of that debate would be to consider the recommendation of this Committee.

He noted that the budget for the general fund was set in February 2016 it was on the expectation that our expenditure would exceed our income by £36,000 which was not taken as a concern as we had ample in reserves to cover this. As it turned out, expenditure exceeded income for that year by £65,000.

A succession of ministers at the DCLG had expressed concerns about local authorities having excessive balances and had threatened to remove or tax these balances in some way. Our balances have been carefully managed over many years and were higher than most other district councils. Given this underspend and the concern of potential government intervention members decided to take the opportunity to increase the contribution from the general fund revenue account to the financing of the Capital Programme by £1million. This left our general fund balance at £6.2million which was £3million higher than the minimum level adopted by members. So despite this transfer the reserve levels were still comfortable. The level of variance as being reported was not unreasonable given that our gross expenditure on the general fund was approximately £70million. It was also better to have an underspend than an overspend. So overall our financial position was good and we do remain in a strong position for the end of the year.

Councillor Knapman noticed that we had a salary underspend and wondered if we had enough people. He gave an example of the land searches section taking longer than other councils. Mr Palmer said that we did not have a recruitment freeze in place. The salary budget was about £20million so a £120,000 underspend was not that much. He could ask the appropriate Assistant Director to clarify.

The meeting noted that there had been one significant change to the annual Statutory Statement of Accounts for 2016/17. For 2016/17, the segmental reporting arrangements for the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement had changed with the introduction of the new Expenditure and Funding Analysis. This analysis brought together the figures as they were presented in the Statutory Statement of Accounts, following proper accounting practice, with the figures more normally seen in the Council’s budgets for the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account, based on the statutorily defined charges.

In preparing a set of accounts at a point in time it was inevitable that some of the information required would not yet be available. If an actual amount was uncertain an estimate would be used. The estimate would be based on the assessment of information available at the time the accounts were closed. When the actual figures were determined any difference was usually accounted for in the following year. If the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19