Agenda item

(Item 7 – report of Mr John Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance and Business Support and Mr A Wood, Corporate Director of Finance and Procurement)

Cabinet received a report of the above named Member and officer reporting the council’s financial position as of quarter three and highlighting for consideration any significant issues.

The Cabinet member for Finance and Business Support introduced the report for Cabinet and in particular he referred to the following information contained therein:

·                That the underspend was forecast at £8.5 million for the present financial year, which was an increase of 1.3m. However on consideration of rolled forward costs for rephrased projects a reduction must be made and the net underspend forecast became £6.4 million.  He reminded Cabinet that £5 million of this underspend was committee in to the 2013/14 budget as approved by County Council.

·                Pressure of approximately £6 million in value, remained on the Specialist Children’s Services budget.  This particularly related to the areas of fostering and residential services.  Provision had been made in the 2013.14 budget to acknowledge these pressures and this combined with further plans for early intervention work would help to balance the budget in this difficult area.

·                Adult Social Care reported an underspend of £1.6million but the demands in this directorate were hard to predict and therefore that figure was subject to change.

·                School reserves had depleted by a further £5.7million which affected the cash balance report but was a result of the transfer of school from LEA control to academy status.

·                The Directorate for Education, Learning and Skills had reported a 4m underspend, largely accounted for by the rephasing of youth employment programme but also as a result of increased purchases via Edukent for the psychology service, by which he was encouraged.

·                Transport continued to show savings following the changes to Home to School transport policy and the introduction of the Freedom pass but SEN transport remained under pressure.

·                The Directorate for Environment, Highways and Waste continued to show savings made by the reduction in the tonnage of waste that went to landfill however, the Directorate had incurred necessary but unplanned costs from works required during and after snowfalls. IN addition £1.15million had been allocated to the budget in order that pothole repairs, required after the recent bad weather, could be undertaken.  The investment to date had proven its worth in keeping the Kent economy running in difficult conditions but also by helping to achieve a reduction in costs attributed to insurance claim payouts.

·                Commercial Services showed a reduced contribution to the council’s budget owing to the restructure recently undertaken and it was forecast that this would be recovered in future years.

·                The Finance Directorate continued to report less borrowing and there has been some necessary rephrasing of the Capital programme.  A £2.3million underspend was reported which was largely attributed to extremely good practice in the area of vacancy management.

·                A further £4.78million had been recovered from our principle deposits lost in the Icelandic bank collapse

·                The Council had 333 fewer staff after the first three quarters of the financial year and services continued to be delivered.

In relation to the Capital Budget the Cabinet member reported the following:

·                That the Capital programme budget remained high at £644million over the period 2012/15 with £602million of that currently allocated to projects.

·                Of the variances reported £31million of projects would be rephrased and 19.5m would be met by predicted underspends.

The Corporate Director of Finance and Procurement added the following information:

·                That the number of ‘Looked after Children’ for the first time on three years showed a significant reduction.

[This statement referred to inaccurate statistics within the report which had omitted a particular group of children in error]

·                That the achievement of reductions in spending and the underspends that this had created should be congratulated.  However it was important that the hard work and prudent spending and investment continued in light of the fact that currently the Council was 0.15% within spending targets.

It was RESOLVED: