Issue - meetings

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

It was resolved –

·      To note the progress of expenditure and receipts against the capital budget 2025/26 at Quarter 2.

·      To approve the additional schemes amounting to £3.483m, to the capital programme and amendments to funding, as per Appendix C of the report, which will result in a revised capital budget of £59.669m for 2025/26.

The report of the Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer which set out the financial performance of the capital budget at the end of Quarter 2 of the 2025/26 financial year was presented for the Executive’s consideration.

Councillor Robin Williams, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Member for Finance, Corporate Business and Customer Experience presented the report noting that in March 2025, the Council approved a capital programme of £23.7m for non-housing services and £20.594m for the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) for the 2025/26 financial year. In July 2025, the Executive approved £2.529m of capital slippage to be brought forward from 2024/25 bringing the capital programme for non-housing services to £25.929m and £20.894m for the HRA. Since the budget setting process, additional schemes, primarily grant funded, have been added to the programme along with adjustments to funding totalling £12.846m.This brings the overall capital budget for 2025/26 to £59.669m. Councillor Robin Williams reported that as of 30 September 2025, £17.480m of the budget had been spent with a further £2.096m committed resulting in a total of £19.576m (33%). A number of capital schemes are weighted towards the latter part of the financial year, and some take longer to complete resulting in slippage which is not unusual. No funding will be lost as a result.

The Director of Function (Resources)/Section 151 Officer highlighted that the Council is dependent to a great extent on grant funding for its capital expenditure with 60% of the capital budget deriving from grant sources. The forecast underspend on the capital programme for 2025/26 is £4.502m of which approximately £1m relates to grant funding. The Council has been assured that this funding will not be lost.  The remaining underspend relates to Council funded projects, ensuring there is no risk of loss of funding.

It was resolved –

·      To note the progress of expenditure and receipts against the capital budget 2025/26 at Quarter 2.

·      To approve the additional schemes amounting to £3.483m, to the capital programme and amendments to funding, as per Appendix C of the report, which will result in a revised capital budget of £59.669m for 2025/26.