Agenda item

Agenda item

End of Year Integrated Report 2013/2014

Contact Officers: Nigel Kennedy, Head of Finance

Tel 01865 252708, nkennedy@oxford.gov.uk

 

Jane Lubbock, Head of Business Improvement and Technology

Tele: 01865 252218, jlubbock@oxford.gov.uk

 

Background Information

 

Last year the committee decided to separate the scrutiny of finance and performance;

 

·         Finance to the Finance Panel.

·         Performance split between the Committee and Panels within a set of indicators agreed by Scrutiny Councillors.

 

This worked well

Why is it on the agenda?

 

This report outlines the integrated position for Finance and Performance for the end of the year 2013/2014.  The timing of this report means that it has to be bought to this committee to give an opportunity for scrutiny.

 

This report will be considered at the city executive board on the 3rd. July.

Who has been invited to comment?

 

Nigel Kennedy, Head of Finance

Jane Lubbock, Head of Business Improvement and Technology

 

 

Minutes:

The Head of Finance submitted a report (previously circulated, now appended) which detailed the Council’s finances, risk and performance as at the end of Quarter 4, 31st March 2014.

 

The Council’s finances are in good shape and there had been an £5.371M underspend in the General fund, 77% of corporate performance targets have been either delivered as planned or exceeded and the capital programme of £22M, made up of 93% of the latest budget.

 

David Williams spoke on the Council’s proposal to purchase the Gladiator Club’s building. He requested the committee’s support for the proposal and queried whether the proposed pledge of £250,000 would be enough to secure the property.

 

The Committee made the following comments:

·         Housing and homelessness are both corporate targets – are we getting on top of these problems? - 1.2M has been carried forward for these. Is this enough, given the recent County Council cuts?

·         We need to maintain a healthy balance in the HRA fund to allow for future house building.

·         There was a £20M slippage in the capital programme last year, how can we make sure that this doesn’t happen again?  We have adopted a more rigorous process which requires project plans to be cleared before they start to make sure they are completed on time.

 

 

The Committee resolved to

 

1.    Welcome the Council’s proposed purchase of the Gladiator Club’s property and recommend that CEB do what they could within the ‘best value’ principle to secure the property.

 

2.    Welcome the recent housing acquisition

 

3.    Recommend to CEB that they reconsider the amount of money in the homelessness contingency in light of the recent County Council cuts.

 

 

Supporting documents: