The Committee is asked to consider the third quarter Financial Management Report.

The Chairman welcomed the Head of Finance to the Meeting.

The Head of Finance introduced the report which set out the revenue and capital projected outturn for 2014/15 as at the end of period nine, covering the period from April to December 2014.  He reported that the projected underspend was £867,600.  The Head of Finance advised that 85% of the net underspend was due to base budget spending on the waste contract and the level of planning fees was higher than budgeted.

Members then asked questions which were responded to as below.

Question:  with the projected underspend, would Swale Borough Council (SBC) then provide more services as a result, such as more street cleaning?

Response from the Head of Finance: the underspend would be rolled-over and added to the reserves.  Very little underspend was carried on to the following year.  He added that the planning fees were dependent on the number of planning applications received; next year was not expected to be a repeat of this year.

Response from the Chief Executive:  the cleansing standards were the same in present and previous cleansing contract; staffing levels were less so there was an efficiency saving.  Deep cleansing operations were carried out in specific areas, and a request could be made if an area was considered in need of a deep clean.

Question:  was the projected net overspend of £105,000 with reference to the Planning Mid Kent Planning Service specific solely to SBC?

Response from the Head of Finance:  yes, £105,000 was in relation to SBC.

Question:  was it possible to identify whether the overspend in Development Services was because of additional workloads or the changes to Planning Administration?

Response from the Chief Executive:  a significant proportion had arisen because of the increased volume of cases, indicated by the increase in income, and by the complexity of planning cases.

The Head Of Finance agreed to forward the proportions of overspend to the Scrutiny Committee.

·         Head of Finance

Question:  would normally welcome an underspend, but with regard to the underspend of £22,000 for Public Conveniences, as some of these were in such a poor state throughout the Borough, could the underspend be used to address this?

Response from Chief Executive:  it was not usual to spend revenue contract costs on something that was revenue capital costs.  End of year underspend on contracts could be invested in capital and maintenance spend.

The Head of Finance in response, agreed to forward further information from the Head of Commissioning and Customer Contact to the Scrutiny Committee.

·         Head of Finance

A Member congratulated the Head of Commissioning and Customer Contract for his work on, and implementation of, the waste contract which the Member considered to be a major success.

The Chairman thanked the Head of Finance for attending the meeting and congratulated the Cabinet Member for Finance, the Head of Finance and the Finance Department for the format of the report which he considered easy to understand.

Resolved:

(1)  That the projected revenue underspend of £867,600 and the proposed rollover of specific and other grants of £148,700 for 2014/15 be noted.

(2)  That the projected capital underspend for 2014/15 of £153,384, and the approval of the additional capital funding to Sittingbourne War Memorial – additional £7,470 from capital receipts be noted.