Agenda item

Report of Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer – Report 07.

Members considered the report of the Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer updating the Members of the Council’s performance against Corporate Plan Priority actions, indicators and milestones for 2012/13.

Members were advised that Appendix 1was a detailed report on the Quarter 4 activities and outturns of the performance indicators listed within the Corporate Plan. The report showed the latest available outturns for the Local Performance Indicators featured in the 2010/15 Corporate Plan broken down into themed areas. 

Members were advised that each project had been allocated a number of in-year actions and milestones to be completed in order to progress the project efficiently. Some projects may be completed within the year whereas larger scale priorities would be delivered over a longer period. The first section of Appendix 1 listed those Corporate Plan priorities actions whose in year milestones had been completed in full this year.

The second section of Appendix 1 listed those not completed this year along with commentary to explain the context behind them. The majority of milestones that were outstanding would be carried forward into the refreshed Corporate Plan for 2013/14. Chapter summary text had also been supplied from the relevant Heads of Service to provide added context for the performance reported in each section.

The Strategic Performance Manager advised Members’ that of the 46 Key Performance Indicators reported in the Corporate Plan this year, only 6 were showing as red (performing off target), 28 were showing as green (performing on target), 7 were showing as amber (near misses) and 7 were “data only” or contextual Performance Indicators. Further details were contained in the report.

The Committee was also informed that the Covalent Performance Management system now had the capability to identify those performance indicators that were performing best, demonstrated the best relative improvement in performance and also those that were deteriorating in performance.

The Strategic Performance Manager advised Members that they were currently trialling a Scrutiny log in that would allow Members to access a graphic view of the performance indicators and highlight those likely to change.

The Council’s Devolved Budget spend was also appended to the report which listed the projects supported and their cost, sorted by ward.

The report also provided Scrutiny Committee with the provisional outturn results for the general fund, the housing revenue account (HRA) and capital programme for 2012/13. Members’ noted that a provision outturn variance of £57,000 which showed a reduction of £175,000 when compared the position to the end of December that showed a monitoring variance of £118,000.

Service expenditure had a variance of £44,000 mainly as a result of redundancy costs funded by future savings, increased expenditure by Theatres, Tourism and Events and a short fall in their income. These were however offset by favourable variances such as the final outturn from the Housing Subsidy and Benefits overpayment recovery, receipt of additional in year grant support, unused balance on the contingency fund and additional income from sport and leisure and bereavements. Further details were contained within Appendix 2 of the report.

The General Fund Summary figures included transfers to and from reserves were contained in Appendix 3 of the report, that in many cases reflected transfers previously agreed or in the very least where the principle of the transfer had been previously established.

The following useable revenue reserves came as a result of the under spend in the outturn and the application of reserves to fund expenditure.

The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) performance for 2012/13 was set out in Appendix 4 of the report and showed a surplus of £177,000 that represented a variance of £161,000 against the revised budged of £16,000. The principle reasons for this variance were the delay in property disposals and demolitions resulting in additional rental income, a reduction in provision for bad debts required and the rent rebate contribution to the general fund no longer being required. The balance of the HRA at 31 March 2013 was £2,178,000.

A summary of capital expenditure for the year was shown at Appendix 5 of the report. The revised capital programme for 2012/13 was £12.4 million and the outturn was £12.5 million, which represented a variance of £79,000 or 0.6%. An updated version of the programme reflected the re-profiling change required as a result of the 2012/13 outturn.

NOTED.