Agenda item

The Committee received a report from the Business Support Team Leader providing an oversight of financial performance at the end of quarter 3 2022/23 in relation to revenue, capital and treasury management.

Revenue

In relation to revenue budgets, the forecast outturn position was a net contribution to reserves of £119,000. This was a decrease of £97,000 from the forecast contribution reported to this Committee in November for Quarter 2.

At this stage of the year there was an increase in the number of variances being reported, as services had been able to report an outturn position with more certainty. The movement from Quarter 2 was primarily due to the following reasons.

Employee expenditure pressure had increased to £175,000 for the year. This reflected the final impact of the 2022/23 pay award which had been applied in November and backdated to April 2022. Provision had been made to allow for up to a 4% pay award in the 2022/23 budgets. However, the final award had been an average of 6% with a fixed amount payable at each scale point.

As there had been an increase in income above budget in other areas, it had been possible to contain the additional impact of the pay award within existing budget provision, resulting in an overall surplus position.

Bank charges had resulted in a pressure of £90,000. This was due to the payment of Government support via faster payments. However, Government guidance had now advised local authorities that future payments were to be made via BACS upload which took slightly longer to be received by the payee but was a lower cost process. Reimbursement of these costs was being sought but as yet this has not been confirmed.

A £59,000 balance of a corporate contingency budget which was not needed could be returned to reserves.

The net interest receivable in investments had increased to £309,000. This was due to the budgets being set when interest rates were historically low, and this, combined with larger balances than expected in the early part of the year had meant that the Council was forecast to exceed its interest receivable budget.

The forecast planning fee income above budget had increased to £221,000 due to applications for major developments already received, and others that were anticipated to be submitted in this financial year.

Capital

In relation to capital, schemes were reporting a £2.808m underspend against a revised budget of £10.55m. £2.765m of this was to be carried forward into future years. The majority of this related to reprofiling of the cinema development budget. £0.043m was reported as an underspend in year, which was mainly due to the website replacement scheme which was now complete.

Fees and Charges

Members were invited to approve three amendments to the fees and charges schedule:

• The first was Land Charges. Lincolnshire County Council had now confirmed their search fees for 2023/24.

• The DBS checks within taxi licensing fees were to remain unchanged from the current year.  In the original schedule, a small increase had been anticipated.

• The Crematorium. The Tributes supplier had added some new products around webcasts and slide shows which had been added to the fees schedule. They had also changed the description of some of their existing products and the schedule had been amended to reflect this.

Having been advised that action was being taken to seek to recover bank charges, it was proposed, seconded and

RESOLVED that

Revenue

a)    The forecast outturn position of £0.119m net contribution to reserves as at 31December 2022 relating to revenue activity be accepted.

b)    The use of Earmarked Reserves during the quarter approved by the Chief Finance Officer, using delegated powers be accepted.

c)    The amendments to the fees and charges schedules for 2023/24 (to be effective from 1 April 2023) be approved and Council be RECOMMENDED to implement any new fees and charges from that date.

Capital

d)    The current projected Capital Outturn as detailed in section 3.1.1. of the report be accepted.

e)    The adjustment to the Capital Budget as detailed in 3.2. of the report be accepted.

f)     The revised Capital Budget of £7.853m be approved.

Treasury

g)    The report, the treasury activity and the prudential indicators be accepted.