Issue - meetings

Mr Mark Green presented his report which provided an update on the Policy and Resources Committee’s financial position at the end of the second quarter of the year. Additionally, the Committee was asked to provide guidance as to what level of budget variances they wanted reported to them, with the current level being variances of more than £30,000 being reported. The report recommended that this level remained the same.

The Committee noted that:

·  The largest revenue underspend was for the homelessness prevention service, and the largest overspends were in Planning Fees and the Park and Ride Service.

·  A number of capital projects were listed as having slippage – this was due to the projects not progressing as quickly as originally anticipated, however the spend was still projected to be required.

Mr Green was requested to carry out some work to assess the financial benefits of the resources the Council had invested into procuring its own Temporary Accommodation portfolio, as it was clear that this approach had been beneficial to the Council.

In response to a question from a Member of the Committee, Mr Green explained that reporting budget variances as a percentage of projected spend could mean a large number of operational decisions being reported to Committee. Equally, there was a risk that overspends that were significant to the authority’s finances that related to large capital projects may also be missed due to not reaching the agreed threshold. Mr Green confirmed that £30,000 represented around 0.1% of the Council’s revenue budget.

RESOLVED: That

1.  The second quarter budget monitoring report, attached at Appendix 1, be noted.

2.  The threshold for reported detailed information against the variances against the revenue budget be set to £30,000.

Voting: Unanimous