Issue - meetings

F Jump introduced the report to members and ran through the projected outturn. The headlines for this quarter were as follows:
- the General Fund pressure for DBC as a whole is currently £719k
- paragraph 3.4 shows the breakdown of the current financial position.
- within the £719k pressure, £595k relates to this committee but the current early projection is that it is expected to improve.
- majority of the overspend is in supplies and services. Co-mingled waste disposal has a £500k pressure.
- the capital programme at appendix B shows a slippage of £1.7 million. Under line 128, there has been an underspend of £125k as a solution has been found to extend the life of the roof of Berkhamsted Sports Centre.

Councillor Birnie said he was concerned about commercial waste and asked officers why they thought this was going to get better.
C Thorpe said the main reason was the cost of materials. A year ago, the price of materials was fairly stable. Now it has dropped and we are not taking on as many customers so therefore collecting at a loss.

Councillor Anderson asked about the commercial waste annual income target.
F Jump said it was currently £1.1 million
Councillor Anderson suggested the budget setting process might be making life harder by being over optimistic.

Councillor Birnie asked if other costs were contributing to the loss of income or if it was the increased costs of disposal.
C Thorpe said it was loss of income. The Chinese market is no longer taking plastic but the price of paper is starting to slowly increase.
Councillor Marshall said there was a reduction in income but not a loss overall. She said that investigations are continuing into the reasons why.

Councillor Matthews said that other local authorities must be facing the same issue. He questioned whether there was any way of increasing the value of the waste by changing the collection strategy.
C Thorpe said it was a country wide issue and in meetings with colleagues, some said that they had reported the impact of loss of income into their budgets

Councillor S Hearn commented that the provision of services is more important that the financial implications.

Councillor Birnie referred to the increase in planning incomes fees but queried as to why the same wasn’t true for land charges.
J Doe said the increase in income was from major applications who attract disproportionate fees. There has been less activity in the property market so there has been less land charge searches. However, developers can obviously see a long term demand.

Outcome

That the Strategic Planning & Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee approve the report.