Issue - meetings

The Head of Strategic Finance and Property and Head of Communications, Strategy and Policy submitted a report on the finance and performance of the Council as at 31 December 2018.  The Head of Strategic Finance and Property explained that an underspend of £29k was predicted.

Members debated the report at length and clarification was sought and provided on a number of issues including:

·       The overspend of £31k within Democratic and Legal Services (and the difficulties in recruiting solicitors) and whether the section had sufficient resources to manage the workload, including schemes to nurture new staff;
 

·       The level of outstanding debt, of which £123k related to outstanding section 106 monies due from developers; 

·       Concerns that the underspends and slippage may be impacting on capital schemes (such as the fire suppression unit at Buntingford) and have a negative effect on the Council;

·       The overspend of £27K against the Shared Business and Technology Services budget and digital savings not being achieved. Concerns were expressed about the VM ware not working on I-pads.

·       The level of contribution from reserves of £1.116M  in 2018/19;

·       The £46K overspend on the Financial Management System and whether this would impact on the audit.

Assurances were sought and provided that there was sufficient staff in place to manage the election process.  The Chief Executive explained that regular team update meetings were being held.

Councillor A Alder referred to the lack of progress with regard to the public toilets in Sawbridgeworth.  The Chief Executive advised that a scheme had been submitted to the Town Clerk and that the Council was awaiting a response. 

The Committee Chairman referred to the good progress made on the Hertford Hydro.

It was moved by Councillor J Wyllie and seconded by Councillor T Stowe, that the recommendations, as detailed be approved.  After being put to the meeting and a vote taken, the motion was declared CARRIED.

RESOLVED – that (A) the projected revenue budget forecast underspend of £29K in 2018/19 be noted (paragraph 2.1);

(B)   the capital budget for 2018/19 of £11.485M be noted (paragraph 6.1);

(C)     the reported performance for the period October 2018 to December 2018.