Cabinet member for finance and corporate
assets, Councillor Andrew Crawford, introduced the report.
Officers Simon Hewings, Interim Head of
finance, and Richard Spraggett, Finance business partner, were
present to answer questions.
This report outlines the revenue and capital
outturn for 2019-20.
On revenue, there is an underspend of
£1.5 million on net service expenditure. Half of this
underspend is for one-off schemes which have been carried over to
2020-21. Details are in the report.
Capital: underspend of £3.5 million,
details and significant variances are detailed in the report.
Chair welcomed the committee to ask questions.
The discussions are outlined below:
- Item 12: variance due to empty
commercial properties. This was queried and finance officers will
prepare a written response.
- Planning fees – they were
below target due to a market slowdown. Finance officers will
provide a written response. Officers did add that there was some
uncertainty and a slow down due to leaving the EU.
- Page five – officers clarified
the contingency figure. This figure is broken down in table
three.
- Table three – £1.6
million for grants and contributions – finance officers
explained that this figure is for housing benefit payment and
housing subsidy – see table two.
- Page eight, table four – the
last two years variance is around £700,000, it was asked if
officers could add some previous year’s values to see the
trends? Officers responded that they’ve tended to see that
the number was bigger previously. In recent years, officers have
worked to tackle excess budgets and reduce the variance. Written
answer to follow.
- Housing benefits and rent allowances
– table two, page five – it was asked what a rent
allowance overpayment is? Officer responded that if a recipient of
the benefit doesn’t notify of a change in circumstances, the
council is entitled to claim back the overpayment and we will get a
government subsidy for part of that overpayment. It is a difficult
debt to collect. Universal credit is lowering this – there
are no new customers and this also impacts rent allowance income.
There was a Department for Work and Pensions issue regarding
getting information. There is now more real-time reporting, so
there are less overpayments.
- When is the audit taking place? What
variance is being expected? Officers replied that the audit is
expected at the end of 2020 or early 2021. There is not normally an
issue with revenue outturn. These are not the biggest numbers in
the accounts. Unlikely to see a significant change. If there is a
material change (unlikely) it may come back to scrutiny then, if
requested.
- Page nine – slippage: These
are capital items, and these are listed in appendix four. There is
not that many of them – Faringdon Leisure pitch is one
– there were technical issues and this project will move into
2020-21. Affordable housing is the largest – this has gone to
Council and the budget will be used but waiting to be attached to
projects. Some of the affordable housing is linked to Growth Deal,
its being dealt with. Optimism is being replaced with realistic
profiles, and especially this year where there have been unexpected
events and we can still expect slippage for this year because of
that.
- It was confirmed that capital cannot
be transferred to revenue, this is because of government
regulations. There are strict rules on what counts as revenue.
Chair thanked officers and Cabinet member for
bringing the report to scrutiny.