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Issue

Issue - meetings

2018/19 Provisional Outturn

 

 

Meeting: 18/06/2019 - Cabinet (Item 9)

9 Provisional Financial Outturn 2018/19 pdf icon PDF 126 KB

Report of the Strategic Director of Housing and Customer Services

Presented by the Corporate Portfolio Holder

Minutes:

The Corporate Portfolio Holder presented the report to Members.

 

He advised that the report summarised the main elements of the financial performance for 2018/19 and sought approval of the impact on reserves. He noted that the results were ‘provisional’ as they were still subject to external audit and could change. He highlighted that the final audited accounts would be presented to the Audit & Governance Committee on 24 July 2019 for approval.

 

He informed members that the financial performance across the council had continued to improve and he thanked the Finance team for their hard work in delivering the annual accounts. He advised that the team had been dealing with some legacy issues and despite that, they had delivered a quality outcome against a tight deadline.

 

In relation to the General Fund he highlighted the following:-

 

  • The expected final position on the General Fund was £1.525m surplus against a budget of £299k.

 

  • The majority of variances had been known about and reported throughout the year. 

 

  • All major variances were included in Table 2 of the report. 

 

  • The most significant variance had been a favourable movement in business rates, with an additional £480k retained by the council compared to the budgeted level.  Differences between budget and actual business rate income were not unusual due to the complex nature of forecasting business rates.

 

  • It is proposed that £1.42m of the surplus was contributed to the self-sufficiency reserve.

 

  • Of the remaining £100k surplus it was proposed to allocate:

 

  • £20k to fund an options appraisal for Moira Furnace and surrounding land.  The Council had committed to do this in the  Council Delivery Plan but had unfortunately not been unsuccessful in obtaining Resilient Heritage funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

 

  • £20k to support administration of EMEG Access to Work and Skills and the Shop Frontages Improvement Scheme, Enterprise Grant Scheme

 

  • £30.5k to commission a Carbon Footprint report which would provide assess the organisation and develop an action plan to move the district to a carbon neutral position by 2050 or before.  The Council was also considering signing up to the UK100 Pledge, a group of Local Government bodies who were actively committed to shifting to 100% clean energy by 2050.

 

  • £30k to undertake a food waste recycling pilot.

 

In relation to the HRA he noted the following:-

 

  • The outturn on the HRA was an expected surplus of £4.9m against a budget of £2.95m with the major variances being a lower than budgeted depreciation charge for the year, under spends on employee costs and on painting programmes. 

 

  • The In House Repairs team also generated a surplus of £385k that was recycled back into the HRA.  In 2017/18, the amount was £272k and the increase for the past year demonstrates the effectiveness of bringing more repairs work and capital improvements back in house and the position should continue to improve in the current year.

 

He thanked the repairs team for the continuing good work.

 

In relation to Capital and Reserves he highlighted the following:-