Agenda item

To be presented by Councillor Katrina Wood.

Decision:

This report sets out the overview of the financial Revenue and Capital outturn position across all five legacy Councils for the financial year 2019/20. 

There are further 4 detailed reports on the Agenda for:  Bucks County Council (BCC), Wycombe District Council (WDC), Aylesbury Vale District Council (AVDC) and a combined report for South Bucks and Chiltern District Council.  Although, all the Council’s provide similar services, however they do have different challenges and dynamics and therefore these separate reports provides an insight into the financial performance for the year. 

RESOLVED:

a)        Consider and Note the summarised Revenue and Capital outturn for all the five legacy Councils.

b)        Approve recommendation in respect of Capital carry forward £13.825m (this amount was amended during the meeting as the figure of £14.7m in the agenda pack was an error) as detailed in the Aylesbury Vale District Council outturn report.

c)         Approve recommendation in respect of Revenue (£1.2m) carry forward and Capital (£4.5m) carry forward as detailed in the Wycombe District Council outturn report.

 

 

 

Minutes:

Katrina Wood, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Resources, introduced the report which presented the financial outturn reports for the legacy councils for Buckinghamshire for 2019-2020.  There was an overarching revenue and capital provisional outturn for that period with appendices which covered each legacy Council, noting that Chiltern District Council and South Bucks District Council reports were combined.  The Wycombe District Council report also contained appendices for the High Wycombe Town Committee outturn and the capital carry forwards.  The overarching report provided a summary of the revenue and capital outturn position and the general fund balances which in total forecasted £49.7m.

 

The revenue table in paragraph 1.4 showed that although all the Councils had achieved either a balanced or underspend position there were service pressures due to an increase in service demand and costs.  These had been managed mainly through the use of reserves, favourable grant funding or favourable variances on corporate items.  The total capital programme across the five councils was just under £168m against which £134m was spent. If approved by Cabinet, the majority of the unspent programme (£33.5m) would be carried forward to complete the projects in future years.  The variances at the end of Quarter 3 were fully considered as part of setting the budgets for 2020-2021 and the variances arising since then were being reviewed to understand any ongoing impacts and mitigations.  This, along with the financial impact of COVID-19, would be reported as part of the Quarter 1 monitoring position.  K Wood advised that the figures were provisional and work to complete year end was ongoing and could have an impact on the final outturn position. K Wood highlighted that there was an error in recommendation b (to approve recommendation in respect of capital carry forward £14.7m as detailed in the Aylesbury Vale District Council outturn report).  The actual amount should read £13.825m not £14.7m; £14.7 is what was spent not what was being carried forward.  Richard Ambrose, Section 151 Officer, added that the district council audits should be completed by the end of July 2020 and the Buckinghamshire County Council audit should be completed by the end of September 2020.

 

The following points were raised by members of the Cabinet:

 

  • M Tett emphasised that the outturn was the start of the new Buckinghamshire Council and was the ending point of the previous councils.
  • In response to whether the outturns were as anticipated; R Ambrose stated that the position was generally as had been assumed but there were  changes in the final quarter in home to school transport;  there were also some late variances for Aylesbury Vale District Council related to bad debt provision and the waste budget.  These would be reported to Cabinet on 28 July 2020.
  • A Cabinet member asked if comparative figures for the last year would be provided.  R Ambrose advised that it would be difficult to provide comparators as it was not ‘like for like’; however, comparisons would be carried out where possible.

 

M Tett stressed the need to understand the implications of Covid-19 as the Council had suffered a huge loss of income.  The Government had provided support on expenditure and had recently announced the provision of additional funding on income protection but the Council would have to pick up the first 5%.  R Ambrose acknowledged it was likely that there would be a gap between the additional expenditure due to Covid-19 and lost income compared to the funding provided.  A report would be presented to Cabinet on 28 July 2020 which would set out the strategy for mitigating the pressure. The strategy, currently, was to protect the general fund or unallocated balances, as the reserves could only be used once and it would be better to use them in a planned way rather than to cover any shortfall in the current financial year, but it provided some flexibility to ensure a sustainable budget going forward.

 

RESOLVED:  Cabinet AGREED to:

a)       CONSIDER and NOTE the summarised Revenue and Capital outturn for all the five legacy Councils.

b)       APPROVE recommendation in respect of Capital carry forward £13.825m (this amount was amended during the meeting as the figure of £14.7m in the agenda pack was an error) as detailed in the Aylesbury Vale District Council outturn report.

APPROVE recommendation in respect of Revenue (£1.2m) carry forward and Capital (£4.5m) carry forward as detailed in the Wycombe District Council outturn report.

Supporting documents: