Decision details

The Capital Programme for 23-24 to 26-27 was approved by Full Council in February 2023 as £505.9m. The 22-23 outturn underspend was £44.3m. After a detailed review of each scheme in the programme, £46.3m of unspent budget has been carried forward into the new financial year. The increase was due to a small number of projects overspends that were funded in 22-23 and not carried forward. The capital programme now needed to be reprofiled in future years to ensure the annual spend profile was realistic, and to reduce the likelihood of slippage. There were also some recommended additions for new funding, reductions and reallocations of funding from closed projects, plus a small number of projects with inflationary overspends that required use of the corporate contingency to complete. The report set out the recommended changes for approval and would result in the Capital Programme increasing from £505.9m as agreed at Full Council, to £556.7m. Since the Budget was approved by Council in February 2023 there was an additional £5.782m recommended to be added to the Programme. Of this: £4.184m was externally funded from grants; £1.232m was the addition of agreed, specific s.106 projects; and £0.365m was a recommended use of an earmarked revenue reserve to fund a project overspend.

RESOLVED that the following budget adjustments to the approved Capital Programme be APPROVED: 

1. That £5.782m of additions be made to the capital programme, £5.416m to be externally funded from grants and S.106, and £0.365m funded from ringfenced Council reserves. 

2. That £0.288m of the Capital Contingency be used to fund the inflationary pressures of two existing projects. 

3. That £3.366m of budget reductions for completed projects from the capital programme be approved, of which £0.644m of corporate funded projects are to be reallocated to the capital contingency. 
   (Note: where external funding was released it will be reinvested in alternative projects that would come forward in due course). 

4. The reprofiling of the revised £556.8m Capital Programme inclusive of £46.3m of carry-forward budgets over the MTFP 2023-27.