Issue - meetings

This report summarises the Council’s provisional financial performance for 2023/24 and details the capital budgets to be carried forward for schemes where costs will be incurred in 2024/25.

Following consideration, the Committee unanimously resolved to:

(1)       Receive the report on provisional financial outturn for 2023/24;

(2)       Approve the carry forward £2.387m budget for capital schemes to be added to the 2024/25 capital programme.

(3)       Note that the provisional outturn position is subject to external audit. Should any material changes arise from the audit, these will be reported back to members.

The Committee received a report summarising the Council’s provisional financial performance for 2023/24 and detailing the capital budgets to be carried forward for schemes where costs will be incurred in 2024/25.

The following matters were considered:

a)             External Audit review of provisional outturn. In response to a question from a member, the Chief Finance Officer informed the Committee that the External Auditor was due to undertake the audit of the provisional outturn in October – December 2024. This was later in the year than in previous years due to a backlog of local government audits elsewhere in the sector.

b)             Capital project budgets carried forward to 2024/25. In response to a question from a member, the Chief Finance Officer informed the Committee that the information contained in Table 6, paragraph 7.3 of the report did not include the budget for the deferred works to the Community and Wellbeing Centre as it related to projects from 2023/24. The Committee noted for clarity that the deferral of the works to the Community and Wellbeing Centre in 2024/25 had not removed the budget or changed the decision of the Council with regard to the works.

c)             Employee Support Services. In response to a question from a member the Chief Executive informed the Committee that the Council had a low staff turnover at present and that a vacancy rate was included in the budget, as was the case for other organisations. The Chief Finance Officer informed the Committee that the Council’s staffing budget was £14m and that a variance of £100,000 represented a small proportion (less than 1%) of the overall budget.

Following consideration, the Committee unanimously resolved to:

(1)       Receive the report on provisional financial outturn for 2023/24;

(2)       Approve the carry forward £2.387m budget for capital schemes to be added to the 2024/25 capital programme.

(3)       Note that the provisional outturn position is subject to external audit. Should any material changes arise from the audit, these will be reported back to members.