Agenda item

Purpose: To receive the revenue outturn report for 2009/10 and consider any areas of concern. 

The Committee considered the timetable for receiving budget monitoring reports and the provisional 2009/10 outturn report (Agenda Item 7).

Andy Walker circulated a proposed timetable for when the Resource Management Select Committee (RMSC) could receive budget monitoring reports.  This proposed that the monthly report produced immediately after the end of the quarter could be considered once they had been discussed at Management Board.  The Executive only received quarterly reports and because of timing constraints these needed to be considered at the Executive prior to the RMSC. 

Councillor Jeff Brooks made an alternative proposal for the Executive’s consideration that would allow RMSC to consider quarterly reports after Management Board but before the Executive.  This would create the opportunity for RMSC to feed in comments/recommendations to the Executive.  Stephen Chard agreed to identify whether approval would be required by the Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission (OSMC) to these recommendations, if this proposal was agreed.  For this proposal to work, any approval would need to be within a short timescale and most likely separate to a meeting of the OSMC. 

Councillor Keith Chopping advised that an issue with allowing this would be one of timing.  With the report being considered by the RMSC it would be in the public arena prior to the Executive and precedence should be with the Executive. 

It was suggested that if the RMSC meeting was scheduled a week prior to the Executive then the report would already be in the public domain.  Councillor Chopping felt this proposal was possible if the timing could be adapted, but this was a decision for the Executive.

Councillor Laszlo Zverko was not in support of this proposal as he felt the Executive had the responsibility for approving the report and should therefore have the opportunity to comment on the reports first.  If this was the case then Councillor Brooks suggested the report could come to RMSC shortly after the Executive. 

Andy Walker then presented the provisional outturn report and made the following points:

·                    The Council’s provisional outturn was an underspend of £5k against its budget. 

·                    The significant overspends within the Community Services and Environment Directorates had been offset by underspends within the Children and Young People and Chief Executive Directorates. 

Members referred to changes to the budget position towards the end of the financial year and queried when these became apparent.  Andy Walker advised that a provisional closedown of accounts was undertaken after month nine and issues began to be identified at that stage. 

Members felt that achieving an underspend of only £5k was positive, but there were concerns that many savings had to be found to achieve this in the last two months of the financial year.  It was felt that efforts should be made to identify savings earlier in the year so that any available funds could potentially be utilised elsewhere.  There was also a view given that changes had been made late in previous financial years. 

Councillor Chopping accepted this point and advised that it was his intention to undertake an investigation into the outturn position over recent years.  This would involve the identification of service areas with a variance of £50k or more from month 9 to the outturn position.   

Councillor Chopping assured Members that budgets were set based on the experience and trends of previous years.  However, as an example, a lower demand in Children and Young People for adoption placements and therefore reduced expenditure was difficult to predict.  Similarly the overspends reported were demand led.  The lower expenditure in adoption placements could not be factored into the budget for 2010/11 as it was unlikely to be repeated, but the pressures in Adult Social Care had been taken into account. 

Andy Walker informed the Committee that underspends were not shared between Directorates/Service Areas.

Members were pleased to note the improvement to monthly budget monitoring forecast reports compared to previous years, although this needed to be maintained throughout the year.  Councillor Chopping voiced his agreement with this point.

Interest payments and investment income were queried.  Andy Walker advised there was a 1% return on investments. 

The level of the Council’s borrowing was £45m, but more than half of this dated back to Berkshire County Council. 

RESOLVED that:

(1)       Andy Walker, Councillor Keith Chopping and other relevant Members and Officers would consider the options for the RMSC to see quarterly budget reports and report this back.

(2)       Stephen Chard would identify whether approval would be required by the OSMC to recommendations of the RMSC for the Executive, if the RMSC was to meet in advance of the Executive for this purpose.

(3)       The outturn report and the balanced budget would be noted.  The work to review the outturn position of this year and previous years was supported.