Issue - meetings

Fourth Quarter Budget Monitoring

Meeting: 13/06/2017 - Strategic Planning, Sustainability and Transportation Committee (Item 21)

21 Report of the Director of Finance and Business Improvement: Fourth Quarter Budget Monitoring pdf icon PDF 58 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director of Finance and Business Improvement presented a report on the fourth quarter budget monitoring.

 

The Committee noted that:

 

·  There was an overall underspend for services within the Committee’s remit of £246,631.

 

·  Parking services had achieved a favourable variance across all areas, other than Mote Park Pay and Display Car Park which had a £64,711 shortfall.

 

·  The significant overspend of £249,381 on Development Management was due to additional staffing costs, which was primarily in the first six months of the last municipal year. The situation had now been broadly brought back under control.

 

·  The planning appeals budget of £119,000 for 2017/18 was unlikely to be sufficient.

 

·  The previous government signalled that it would allow authorities to increase planning fees by 20%, which for the Council would mean an extra £120,000 of income for 2017/18. This would have helped to offset financial pressures. Unfortunately, the legislation which would have allowed the Council to implement these planning fee increases was not enacted before the General Election and it was unlikely that this would occur before the autumn.

 

The Committee raised concerns that:

 

·  There could be a future loss of income due to development needs, which could result in the loss of income from some of the Council’s car parks.

 

·  The significant loss of income from not being able to claim the increased planning fees promised in the Housing White Paper  and the expected overspend on planning appeals could mean a substantial adverse variance in the outturn for this Committee. Therefore, the Committee requested that officers update them at the earliest opportunity with the revised 2017/18 figures.

 

RESOLVED: That the Committee noted the financial position for services within its remit at the end of the fourth quarter.