Issue - meetings

(1)       Mr Tilson presented a report on the forecast outturn against budget for the Communities portfolio.  Members asked questions which included the following:-

• Mr Tilson confirmed that Medway Council contributed a fixed amount to the budget for the Coroners service but that an agreement had been reached in relation to the current year’s projected overspend.  A new agreement was being negotiated for future years based on budgeted costs, demographic spread and would be variable if actual costs differed from budget.  Pressures on this budget continued including the Coroners pay rise, body removal contract and also certain mandatory fees.  It was also mentioned that one five week inquest could cost the authority up to £100k.
• Mr Tilson explained that the underspend generated by the Supporting Independence Programme had been used to balance the Communities budget overspend and that the service review was ongoing which may deliver further savings in anticipation of revised service delivery in future years. 
• Mr Tilson confirmed that the reserves for Supporting People were ring fenced.  The reserves were £9m at the beginning of the year but a planned drawdown of nearly £3m of these funds was approved by the Supporting People Commissioning Body.  It was confirmed that the reserved did not feature within the Income and Expenditure account (monitoring focused on gross, income and net) but was within a Balance Sheet code.  It was agreed that Mr Tilson would discuss this outside of the meeting with Mr Christie if he required additional clarification.  Ms Slaven explained that the funding for the Supporting People Programme came from the Department of Communities and Local Government and the programme was delivered via the commissioning body. 

(2)       RESOLVED that the projected 2009/10 outturn figures for the portfolio, based on the outturn included within the second quarterly monitoring report, as presented to Cabinet on 30^th November 2009 be noted.