Issue - meetings

Report FSD16037

The report provided the Portfolio Holder with the provisional outturn position for 2015/16 for the Environment Portfolio.  This showed an underspend of £1.049 million for 2015/16 against a controllable budget of £33.14 million, representing a 3.17% variation.  Excluding a carry forward sum of £306,000, the underspend was £743,000.

The report detailed the major variations compared to the last reported budget monitoring report in March 2015 which included:

Street Scene and Green Space (Cr 167,000) – saving of £43,000 from public conveniences due to the implementation of budget options before the end of last year  and savings from staff vacancies, market income and snow friend materials and other miscellaneous variations.

Transport and highways (Cr 873,000) – the mild winter resulted in an underspend of winter service budgets of £131,000 and at the end of the year there was a surplus income totalling £266,000 for on and off street parking.  A reduction in the use of the mail delivery service led to savings of £42,000.  Staffing vacancies during the year led to an underspend on staffing across the division of £176,000.

The report also detailed carry forward requests which included £180,000 to meet the costs of the equipment and installation of bus lane automated cameras; £126,000 to meet the costs of the equipment installation of non bus lanes automated cameras; £13,090 for the Waste Electrical and electronic Equipment collection projects; and £69,482 from the Lead Local Flood Authority Grant.

RESOLVED: That the Portfolio Holder be recommended to:

(a) Endorse the 2015/16 provisional outturn position for the Environment Portfolio;

(b) Note the outturn position in respect of the Environment projects within the Member Priority Initiatives programme; and

(c) Approve the drawdown of the carry forward sums held in Central Contingency, £306,000 for parking automatic cameras, £13,000 for the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Grant funded work and £69,500 to develop standing advice that could be provided on surface water drainage proposals in major development planning applications.