Agenda item

F Jump introduced the report to members and said this report displays the forecast financial position as of the end of September. The council is reporting a significant pressure against the General Fund of £3.1 million. This is largely due to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the council’s income and expenditure but particularly on income streams. In the capital budgets within the committee’s remit, there is a slippage of £0.2 million

Councillor Beauchamp referred to the pressure against the budget and said the headline totals do not seem to stack up with the sum of the pressures identified in the report.

F Jump responded that the report pulls out the largest variances to highlight to members. Some variances are very small and would not be useful for the committee to see. However, she was happy to provide this additional detail to the committee after the meeting.
Action: F Jump

Councillor Birnie asked what the additional staff costs were identified in paragraph 4.1.

J Jump said this includes a variety of staffing pressures under this committee’s remit.

Councillor Birnie referred to the pressure in vehicle repair and asked for clarification.

C Thorpe confirmed that the vehicle repair department had members of staff that were classed as vulnerable and high risk so had to isolate at home. There are five vehicle repair fitters and three staff fell into this category so the team had to bring in some agency staff to cover their absence.

Councillor Birnie referred the £100k pressure for additional maintenance in relation to the fleet replacement programme and questioned if it was wise to slip the project into next year.

C Thorpe said the refuse vehicles are getting older and have been looking at what vehicles can be disposed of earlier. New vehicles have been ordered but they take 11 months from the point of order to build and get into service so this is why the project has slipped into next year.

Councillor Birnie then referred to paragraph 4.2 and the additional cost of hiring extra vehicles due to social distancing measures. He asked if this was covid related and queried if some costs had been double counted as some seemed to have overlapped.

F Jump confirmed there had been no double counting of costs.

Councillor Riddick asked about the vehicle replacement programme and noted this had been going on for some time. He thought this would mean the maintenance costs should be decreasing, not increasing. He asked if old vehicles are sold to third parties when disposed of.

C Thorpe said 14 vehicles had been delivered last year and next 14 are due for delivery in January next year and should then start to see the maintenance costs decrease. All of the second hand vehicles are sent to auction so there is a small income gained.

Councillor Stevens referred to paragraph 3.4 and the government grant. He asked if this would fully cover all covid related costs to the council.

F Jump said the grant does not cover all income losses from covid but it is covering most of the expenditure related pressures. There is a separate income stream grant from the government but this isn’t covering all losses.

Councillor Stevens asked what percentage of the expenditure costs were being covered by the grant.

F Jump said probably a hundred per cent.

Councillor Silwal referred to paragraph 4.1 and the staff pressures and asked why this was.

F Jump said the pressure within the planning department relates to appeals cases where additional resources needed to be brought in.

J Doe clarified that the pressure on staffing costs relate to maternity cover in Development Management. The separate costs relating to appeals are from a legal case lost in Markyate concerning a planning application for a new food store in Hicks Road where costs were awarded against the council. It was a judicial review of a planning decision as opposed to a planning appeal.