Issue - meetings

To submit a report by the Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer.

It was resolved –

·        To note the draft unaudited main financial statements for 2019/20 (Full Statement of Accounts available on the Council’s website).

·        To note the position on earmarked reserves and to approve the use of, or increases to individual reserves as noted in Appendix 4 to the report.

·        To approve the new reserves amounting to £0.160m as shown in Table 4 of the report.

·        To note the school balances position.

·        To note the HRA balances as at 31 March, 2020.

The report of the Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer incorporating the draft main financial statements for the 2019/20 financial year was presented for the Executive’s consideration.

The Portfolio Member for Finance reported that included in the report are the draft Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement for 2019/20 and the draft Balance Sheet as at 31 March, 2020 together with information about reserves and balances. The figures contained within the report are unaudited and may therefore be subject to change. A report will be presented to the Council following the completion of the External Audit. In presenting the report the Portfolio Member for Finance took the opportunity to thank the Finance Service’s staff for their work over the course of the pandemic and he also thanked the Director of Function (Resources)/ Section 151 Officer for the guidance he had provided through this difficult time. Those sentiments were echoed by the Executive as a whole.

The Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer advised that the full draft Statement of the Accounts for 2019/20 is available on the Council’s website and will be presented to the Audit Committee on 21 July, 2020. In summary –

•           The draft Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Statement attached at Appendix 2 to the report shows the accounting cost in the year of providing services in accordance with accounting practices rather than the amount that is funded from taxation and it includes adjustments for depreciation, revaluation of assets, and the re-measurement of pension liability. The Government accepts that council tax payers should not be required to fund such adjustments and therefore the accounts exclude the impact of these in the note called Adjustments between Accounting Basis and Funding Basis under Regulations (Note 7 in the accounts).This note for 2019/20 shows £8.782m of accounting adjustments which are cancelled out in the Movement of Reserves Statement. This means that the true impact on the Council and Housing Revenue Account (HRA) reserves from the provision of services is reduced from a deficit of £7.683m to a surplus of £1.1m which is an increase in Council reserves. This is due to an underspend of £0.308m on the Council Fund and an underspend of £0.210m in the HRA and transfers to the earmarked reserves.

•           Table 1 of the report shows the movement in the Council’s usable reserves during the year; the balance of all usable reserves as at 31 March, 2020 was £25.944m which is an increase of £1.1m (4.2%). The HRA reserve, school balances and the Capital Receipts Reserve are ring-fenced and can only be used for the designated purpose.

•           Appendix 3 to the report presents the draft balance sheet for the Council as at 31 March, 2020. The overall net assets of the Council increased from £162.456m as at 31 March, 2019 to £190.618m as at 31 March, 2020 due partly to the addition of Market Hall, Holyhead and the newly built Ysgol Santes Dwynwen, Newborough. The Balance Sheet will change once of the results of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7