Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda item

Agenda item

Revenue and Capital Budget Monitoring

Minutes:

The Leader, who is also the Cabinet Member for Finance, introduced the report regarding the provisional financial results. He highlighted that although it had been a difficult year with high demand led pressures the projected overspend had been reduced to £2 million from almost £18 million and he paid tribute to the management actions which had been put in place which had enabled the overspend to be reduced, income to be maximised and the decline in the level of reserves to be arrested.

 

In future, school budgets would present a great pressure as the Dedicated Schools Grant was inadequate. This was not just a Worcestershire problem and changes to legislation needed to be funded. The Budget was in better shape this year and although there were still demand led pressures, £27.7million worth of savings initiatives had been achieved.

 

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care explained that adult Learning Disability services had the largest overspend, but £4 million of grant money had been received which had helped with the outturn.

 

£106 million had been spent on capital projects last year which was the highest amount ever spent, which was a good for the future in that it would help boost growth. The Government contributed the most to capital projects through direct Government grants.

 

The pension fund had had a goodish year and the position had improved over the last 3 years and there was an operating surplus of £17 million.

 

Other comments made were:

·       The non-schools dedicated schools grant overspent by £7.7 million and reserves were used to tackle the overspend, but it was pointed out that the problem was a national one as funding for special needs places had not increased while mainstream funding had increased

·       Particular capital projects that had received investment were the Worcestershire Parkway Station, the Southern Link Road, Kidderminster Railway Station improvements and the land purchase adjacent to Malvern Hills Science Park

·       A Member from outside the Cabinet commented that although the new Kidderminster Railway station was going to be superb, not enough parking spaces had been created. It was hoped that the Council would keep pressure on the Midlands Railway Company to provide the additional parking, especially as it was difficult for buses to access the area.

 

RESOLVED: that Cabinet:

(a)        endorsed financial performance for the year ending 31 March 2019 and the unaudited Annual Financial Report and Statement of Accounts 2018/19;

(b)        approved updates to earmarked reserves and general balances as detailed in paragraphs 54 to 60; and

(c)        considered the draft Annual Governance Statement for 2018/19 for comment before final approval is sought from the Audit and Governance Committee in July 2019.

Supporting documents: