Issue - meetings

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

It was resolved –

·      To note the progress of expenditure and receipts against the capital budget 2024/25 at Quarter 1.

·      To approve the additional schemes amounting to £11.369m and a reduction in the HRA budget of £1.345m to the capital programme and amendments to funding as per Appendix C of the report which will result in a revised capital budget of £69.361m for 2024/25.

The report of the Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer setting out the financial performance of the capital budget for the first quarter of the 2024/25 financial year was presented for the Executive’s consideration.

The report was presented by Councillor Robin Williams, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Member for Finance who reported that actual capital expenditure to 30 June 2024 is £9.533m against the profiled budget of £10.790m with a further £1.345m in committed expenditure bringing the total expenditure for the quarter to £10.878m. Although the profiled budget spent to the end of the first quarter for the general fund is 104%, only 11% of the annual budget has been spent to date, this is because a number of the capital schemes are weighted towards the latter part of the financial year. The results at the end of quarter 1 and the associated projected expenditure show that the majority of projects are on target to be completed within budget although being early in the financial year, the situation can change as the year progresses.

The Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer referred to the Council’s dependency on external grants for a large part of its capital programme some of which are awarded annually and some on a competitive basis. The capital programme takes some time to gather momentum with a number of schemes scheduled to get fully underway in quarters 2 and 3 and their progress can be affected by several factors including the weather conditions over quarters 3 and 4. However, the forecast underspend on the programme based on quarter 1 information is £0.700m which is encouraging.

It was resolved –

• To note the progress of expenditure and receipts against the capital budget 2024/25 at Quarter 1.
• To approve the additional schemes amounting to £11.369m and a reduction in the HRA budget of £1.345m to the capital programme and amendments to funding as per Appendix C of the report which will result in a revised capital budget of £69.361m for 2024/25.