Issue - meetings

Note:              Councillor M. Snee left the Chamber at 7.08pm

The Committee gave consideration to a paper presented by the Deputy S151 Officer detailing the Quarter Three Budget Monitoring report for 2024/25, based on the forecast outturn as of 31 December 2024. The following details were highlighted.

Revenue

In relation to revenue budgets, the forecast outturn position was a net contribution to reserves of £536,000, which was an increase of £376,000 from the forecast position reported at quarter two. The increase was mainly due to uncommitted revenue contingency budgets of £367,000.  It was proposed that £250,000 of this be transferred to an earmarked reserve to support the ongoing maintenance of new capital assets. The details of this would be presented to the Committee for approval as part of the final outturn report for 2024/25, alongside other recommendations for use of the final outturn surplus to be discussed with Members and Officers before year end.

It was explained that there was also an increase in net interest receivable of £67,000 due to the current base rate being higher than the peak expected when the budget was set. Forecast pressure for housing benefits subsidy of £133,000 and NSIP £111,000 consultancy costs were provided as a worst case scenario and Officers were looking to reduce those pressures before the end of the year.

Members heard that, at quarter three, Officers were able to more accurately reflect forecast income for fee generating services and there were several new variances reported including gains for bulky waste collections and the big bin hire service and green waste subscriptions, offset by forecast shortfalls against income budgets for the crematorium, and street naming and numbering.

Capital

In relation to capital, it was noted that schemes were reporting a net £5.571m underspend against the revised budget. £5.379m was requested to be slipped into 2024/25, with the largest of those being £4.75m for the purchase of Scampton. Members were asked to approve the revised capital budget of £22.842m which included the amendments to the capital programme detailed at section 3.2 of the report. The full capital monitoring table was included at Appendix 1.

Fees and Charges

Members heard there were two new fees proposed for the crematorium from April 25, in relation to digital downloads of service. Notification of the statutory planning fees for 2025/26 had also been received, with the full schedule included within the report at Appendix 5. The majority of fees were increased in line with the assumptions applied to the income budgets for planning within the medium-term financial plan. Those fees proposed above an inflationary increase were subject to parliamentary approval and any amendments would be reported to Members.

Reserves

Following an amendment to the statement of accounts for 2023/24 Members were asked to approve an additional movement of £76,000 to the budget stability reserve.

Revenue Carry Forwards

It was highlighted that included in the report at section 2.5 there was a request for Members to approve the carry forward of underspend in revenue budget into 2025/26:  ...  view the full minutes text for item 106