Councillors Brock & Lovelock / Director of Resources

This report sets out the projected 2018/19 revenue and capital outturn positions as at the end of September 2018, and performance for the second quarter against the measures of success published in the Council’s Corporate Plan.

The Director of Resources submitted a report setting out the projected revenue and capital outturn positions for 2018/19 as at the end of September 2018 (Quarter 2) and also performance for the first two quarters against the measures of success published in the Council’s Corporate Plan. The following appendices were attached to the report:

·         Appendix 1 – Financial Monitoring for Quarter 2

·         Appendix 2 – Performance Monitoring for Quarter 2

The report explained that the forecast General Fund outturn as at the end of Quarter 2 (Period 6) was a projected overspend of £1.558m, a decrease of £0.796m since the end of Period 5. The decrease was due to a mitigation exercise within each directorate to find mitigations for all current Red Savings within the 2018-2019 savings programme and to cover other pressures previously identified.

The report stated that the General Fund Capital Programme was currently forecasting slippage of £7.185m to future years, mainly due to the East Reading Mass Rapid Transit scheme (£4.577m) and the Accommodation Review (£1.799m); it was anticipated that the rate of expenditure would increase towards the latter part of the financial year.  The Housing Revenue Account was forecasting a £0.350m underspend as at the end of quarter two, due to rent collection rates being higher than budgeted, expenditure on reactive and planned maintenance being underspent and staff vacancies in the sheltered housing team.  The Housing Revenue Account Capital Programme was also currently projected to have slippage of £6.341m to future years, predominantly due to New Builds and Acquisitions (£5.900m) and Major Repairs (£0.500m) with minor variances on other schemes.

The report also set out a summary of performance as at the end of Q2 against the success measures published in the Corporate Plan, to monitor progress against the Council’s six priorities. Measures where there had been key shifts in performance and/or significant variation from the target were highlighted.  Since the Quarter 1 report 10 measures had improved, two measures are static and 10 measures had declined.  The full suite of twenty nine measures and progress against targets as at the end of September 2018 were set out in Appendix 2 attached to the report.

Resolved –

(1)     That the forecast General Fund outturn position as at the end of September 2018, an overspend of £1.558m excluding the use of contingency, be noted;

(2)     That the forecast outturn position on the Housing Revenue Account as at the end of September 2018, a projected underspend of £0.350m, be noted;

(3)     That the forecast outturn position on the Capital Programme as at the end of September 2018 is a projected underspend of £7.185m for the General Fund and £6.341m for the Housing Revenue Account be noted;

(4)     That the performance achieved against the Corporate Plan success measures as set out in the report and Appendix 2 be noted.