Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr MB Loynes, Cllr RB Martlew, Greg Harlock, Chief Executive, and Alex Colyer, Interim Executive Director Corporate Services. 

There were no declarations of interest. 

To review the minutes of the following meetings:

·         Finance Portfolio Holder (21 April 2009)

·         Staffing Portfolio Holder (1 May 2009)

Finance Portfolio Holder’s meeting

The minutes of the Finance Portfolio Holder meeting held on 21 April 2009 were agreed as a correct record.

Matters arising

Item 49: Chairman’s Allowance

It was confirmed that secretarial support to the Chairman was met from the Council’s secretarial resource.

Item 50: Revenues Quarterly Update

The Portfolio Holder was advised that there had been a 50% increase in New Benefit applications and as a result performance against the 20-day target had slipped to 33 days. A more detailed update would be provided at the July Portfolio Holder meeting.

It was confirmed that the Financial Position Report and the Integrated Business Monitoring report were two different reports, with the latter including performance data compiled by the Performance Officer.   However it was confirmed that item 4 on the agenda should be re-titled ‘Financial Position Update’.

Staffing Portfolio Holder’s meeting

The minutes of the Staffing Portfolio Holder meeting held on 1 May 2009 were agreed as a correct record.

There were no matters arising. 

The Head of Accountancy presented a report to provide the Portfolio Holder with an update to the previous provisional outturn report.  The Portfolio Holder was advised that the figures in the report would be subject to finalisation and approval by the External Auditors of the Final Accounts. 

The Portfolio Holder was further advised that there had been some unexpected movements in the accounts since the previous provisional outturn report, but that it was expected that the final results would be within the 3% target range. 

Questions and Comments

The General Fund underspend had increased by £200,000.

The Housing Revenue Account would be ‘fine tuned’ at the end of the year.

It was confirmed that the overspend on the working estimate for Housing Repairs had come about as a result of more repair work being undertaken than forecast.  It was noted that the DLO had performed much of this work and, as a result, the DLO deficit (estimated at approximately £40,000) had been eliminated.

The Portfolio Holder was advised that the £400,000 underspend in 2007/08 had been added into the disabled adaptations budget for 2009/10.

The Portfolio Holder was further advised that a Rollovers Report would be presented at his July meeting.

The Portfolio Holder was advised that final data for the concessionary fares scheme was awaited.

The Portfolio Holder was advised that departmental staff overspends were generally due to the costs of recruitment and that underspends corresponded with vacancies.

The report was NOTED.

The Finance and Staffing Portfolio Holder observed that the Procurement Officer had done an excellent job and requested that this be feedback be given to the Procurement Officer.

The report was NOTED. 

The Comprehensive Equalities Policy 2009-2012 item was moved to the Housing Portfolio Holder Forward Plan.

The Pay Award 2009/2010 and Relocation Policy items were added to the Forward Plan for July. 

The Car Leases item was added to the Forward Plan for December.

The Tree Warden Scheme item was deleted from the Forward Plan.

The Portfolio Holder requested that the Forward Plan be amended to reflect the reporting path of the various performance reports.

Action: Guy Moody

The dates of the next meetings were agreed as:

·         Tuesday 7 July 2009

·         Tuesday 11 August 2009

·         Tuesday 8 September 2009

All meetings will start at 10am.