To receive a report from the Head of Finance presenting the annual report and accounts to members.
Minutes:
The Committee had before it a report * from the Head of Finance presenting the annual report and accounts to Members. It was explained that the Council was still heading towards 4 more years of austerity with continued likely reductions in formula grant. The Government would be releasing an emergency budget on 8 July, however, it would be unlikely to contain much detail as to how local authority budgets would be affected.
Other key highlights within the report related to the following areas:
· The General Fund balance had closed at £2.38m and the HRA at circa £2m.
· High capital spend during 2014/15 had been due to essential and long term maintenance of the Council’s housing stock. It had also been due to building more Council houses, 22 at Wellparks, Crediton, 14 houses being brought back into use at St Andrews Street and 6 new houses at Fir Close in Willand.
· Regarding the Collection Fund, it had been a good year for Council Tax collection and Business Rates.
· Regarding investments there would be a need to look at other options in the coming year, for example, commercial property funds.
· A fifteenth dividend would be returned regarding the Heritable Bank investment meaning, in the worst case scenario, £22k would have been lost out of the £1.1m original investment.
· A detailed breakdown was provided showing transfers to and from ear marked reserves.
Discussion took place regarding;
· Figures in relation to redundancies - it was explained that the redundancies during 2014/15 had related to exceptional circumstances and an attempt to reduce long term salary costs. It was confirmed that the individuals concerned had not retired but had been made redundant. A performance management system was in place to identify and deal with issues of poor performance.
· The question was asked as to where within the 2014/15 ‘Savings and Additional Costs’ table at section 2.1 were the waste and recycling costs relating to the route optimisation project? The Head of Finance (HoF) explained that these were split between the figures shown for the relocation of recycling service to Tiverton, the one-off vehicle & equipment purchases, additional spend on vehicle hire and repairs.
· The long term borrowing situation – it was explained that there was a concept known as the ‘liquidity of the ratio being 2:1’, meaning assets should total twice as much as the long term borrowing amount. The HoF explained that the Council was well within this ratio.
· The pension liability – there would be a need to see this as a long term deficit reduction. It may be necessary to increase contributions from both the employer and employees. It was also hoped that any up-turn in the economy would have a positive impact on the deficit.
· What seemed like a high valuation by the District Valuer of Market Square in Crediton.
· Why the new street sweeper had not been seen in Crediton. The HoF said he would ask the Waste and Transport Manager to contact the Ward Member.
It was AGREED that note 14 within the accounts should be amended to read ‘Grant Thornton’ and not the ‘Audit Commission’.
RESOLVED that the draft annual report and accounts be approved.
(Proposed by the Chairman)
Note: * Report previously circulated; copy attached to the signed Minutes.
Supporting documents: