Agenda item

(To receive a report which provides the Board with an opportunity to scrutinise the review of financial performance for 2016/17 prior to it being considered by the Executive on 4 July 2017.  The views of the Board will be reported to the Executive to inform its consideration of the item)

Consideration was given to a report on the review of financial Performance which would be presented to the Executive at its meeting on 4 July 2017.  The views of the Board would be reported to the Executive to assist with its consideration of the item.

Officers took the Board through the report and the following comments were made by the Board in relation to the under and over spends:

·         Readiness for Adult Life - it was questioned what the options were for meeting the growing demands of Care Leavers and homeless 16-17 year olds and it was suggested that a report should be presented to the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee outlining these options.

·         Children are Safe and Healthy – concerns were raised about the staffing vacancies in the early help teams and it was questioned what the current staffing situation was and if it was critical.

·         Adult Care – it was suggested that in future it would be useful to have a link between expenditure and activity to see what the impact of activity was on spending. The Board was informed that Mosaic had just been implemented and care records were in the process of being transferred to the new system. The next stage of the Mosaic implementation was to bring in the financial information which would mean that a direct correlation between activity and spend would become visible. Planning for this would need to take into consideration the work to upgrade Agresso from its current configuration to version 6.2. Work to implement Mosaic finance functionality would not start until this work was complete and an assessment of the links between the two systems had taken place. Therefore work was unlikely to start until the end of this financial year or the start of the next financial year.

·         Environment and Economy – support was given to the winter maintenance underspend being put into the general reserves as there was £0.5M still in the contingency budget for winter maintenance.

·         Schools – concerns were raised that there was £12.683M underspend in schools budgets and it was questioned how this compared to schools budgets nationally. The Board was informed that the Council had a policy in place where there was a cap of 8% carry forward of schools budgets, and if the carry forward was higher the policy would be triggered. Schools were advised to hold some reserves to provide some flexibility as their budget was driven by pupil numbers. The Lincolnshire Schools Forum regularly received reports on the budgetary position of maintained schools. However, with regards to academies, it was reported that their level of reserves were likely to start decreasing due to the cessation of the LACSEG (Local Authority Central Spend Equivalent Grant), especially once the transition protection ended.

The following comments were made by the Board in relation to the carry forwards:

·         The Board accepted the proposed allocations of carry forwards as set out in paragraph 1.84.

·         It was suggested that more narrative about the business case for each of the carry forward proposals would be useful in future reports to justify the reasons for creating new reserve accounts. However, it was recognised that there was a need for flexibility to withdraw from some proposals if new financial pressures arose in future.

·         Highways Advanced Design Reserve – support was provided for this reserve as it was recognised that it was essential to have schemes ready to go when funding became available.

·         Horncastle Salt Barn Reserve – support was provided for this proposal especially in light of the savings from the winter maintenance budget.

·         It was suggested that it would be useful for some staff to have two screens for working to improve their productivity.

RESOLVED

1.    That the Board support the recommendations to the Executive as set out in the report;

2.    That the comments made in relation to this item be passed to the Executive.