Agenda item

Members considered a report which detailed the Council’s draft final financial position for 2016/17, for both the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account (HRA). 

Officers advised that the figures before Members were draft as they were subject to external audit, with the draft accounts due to be issued to Grant Thornton (the Council’s external auditors) later that week.  Officers were pleased to report that the draft accounts had been produced a month earlier than usual, in anticipation of the earlier statutory deadline for submission of accounts which was due to be introduced from 2017/18.

Officers proceeded to highlight the key elements of the report, which included:

·       additional income generated on the back of the Council’s commercialisation agenda;

·       as a result of the savings made, additional 1 year reserves which had been set aside (if required) for specific projects to improve the services and community infrastructure; and 

·       a financial accounting error which had occurred in relation to the recharge calculation for the HRA.  Members were advised that the error had been made, identified and reported/acted on by Officers.  New processes had since been put in place by Officers to ensure that there would not be any repeat of this issue in the future. Officers had spoken with Grant Thornton on the error and Grant Thornton had stated that this had not impacted on the Council’s general accounts.  The related shortfall had been met by other savings in 2016/17 and Officers were currently addressing the impact of this for 2017/18, and would report back to Members on this in due course.

Officers acknowledged that certain of the variances were quite significant and that there had been some issues in predicting budgets.  The online system for Managers to monitor their budgets direct was due to be rolled out later in the year which should help to address this issue.  The loss of income in dwelling rents as a result of the Government’s rent reduction and increased right to buys was noted, as were the measures which the Council was putting place to try and offset this.

Officers responded to Members’ questions and in doing so agreed to provide further details to Members outside of the meeting on:

·       the community safety underspend in relation to anti-social behaviour (a HRA saving); and

·       the significant variation for the Repairs and Maintenance service, including the high demand for ad-hoc property repairs and unpaid past repair works on void properties – including numbers of properties involved, types of repairs undertaken and separate breakdown of costs for ad-hoc and void properties, set against the context of the overall budget.

RECOMMENDED that

1)          the financial position on Revenue and Capital for the financial year 2016/17 as detailed in the report, and the transfer to balances of £348k as at 31st March 2017, be noted;

2)          the movements of £170k in existing General Fund Reserves as included in Appendix 4 which reflects the approval required for April 2016 to March 2017 be approved;

3)          the addition of new General Fund Reserves of £557k as included in Appendix 4 which reflects the approval required for April 2016 to March 2017 be approved; and

4)          the movements of £540k in existing HRA Reserves as included in Appendix 2 which reflects the approval required for April 2016 to March 2017 be approved.