The report of the Section 151 Officer is attached marked 10.

Contact: James Walton (01743) 258915

13.1  The Committee received the report of the Section 151 Officer – copy attached to the signed Minutes – which provided details of the revised revenue and capital outturn position for Shropshire Council for 2017/18.  The Section 151 Officer reported that the revised position showed an overall underspend of £0.613m and that this revised figure had been reported informally to Cabinet and would be reported to Full Council at its meeting on 26 July 2018.

13.2  The Section 151 Officer explained that the focus for Audit Committee was to look at the underlying process and governance arrangements in place and whether they were happy with the recommendations being made to Council.  The Section 151 Officer then drew attention to Paragraph 6 of the report which set out the Gross Expenditure for 2017/18, and Paragraph 7 which set out the RAG ratings in relation to Savings Delivery.  The financial outturn for savings delivery for 2017/18 was set out in table 3 on page 5 of the report.

13.3  The Section 151 Officer explained that the outturn position had changed since Quarter 3 as a result of further underspends due, in part, to additional income, reduced costs in some areas and further savings as a result of the implementation of a spending freeze.

13.4  In response to a query, the Section 151 Officer confirmed that the expectation was that all the identified savings would be delivered at some point in the future.  He explained that for reasons beyond the Council’s control some of the identified savings had not been realised in the short term, but that these would be monitored closely until they could be delivered.

13.5  In response to a query in relation to school balances, the Section 151 Officer informed the Committee that within Shropshire each school was required to identify a reasonable level of reserves for prudent reasons.  He confirmed that individual school balances were not reported publicly.

13.6  RESOLVED:

          That Council be recommended to:

A.Note that the Outturn for the Revenue Budget for 2017/18 is an underspend of £0.529m, this represents 0.09% of the original gross budget of £563.3m.

B.Note that the level of general balance after adjusting for the underspend and insurance position stands at £15.311m, which is above the anticipated level assessed in February 2017.

C.Note that the Outturn for the Housing Revenue Account for 2017/18 is an underspend of £0.007m and the level of the Housing Revenue Account reserve stands at £8.225m (2016/17 £9.031m).

D.Note the increase in the level of Earmarked Reserves and Provisions (excluding delegated school balances) of £8.026m in 2017/18 and the reasons for this.

E. Note that the level of school balances stands at £5.381m (2016/17 £6.280m).

F.Approve net budget variations of £1.472m to the 2017/18 capital programme, detailed in Appendix 5/Table 11 and the re-profiled 2017/18 capital budget of £59.748m.

G.Approve the re-profiled capital budgets of £61.795m for 2018/19, including slippage of £10.140m from 2017/18, £25.986m for 2019/20 and £15.568m for 2020/21 as detailed in Appendix 5 /Table 15.

H.Accept the outturn expenditure set out in Appendix 5 of £49.608m, representing 83% of the revised capital budget for 2017/18.

I.   Approve retaining a balance of capital receipts set aside of £20.857m as at 31st March 2018 to generate a one-off Minimum Revenue Provision saving of £0.485m in 2018/19.