Agenda item

Report attached.

The Cabinet considered a report of Councillor Peter Britcliffe, Deputy Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Resources, showing the progress of the 2022/23 Capital Programme.

Councillor Britcliffe gave a brief introduction to the report.

Councillor Dad BEM JP asked whether there had been any underspend in Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG).  Mr Dyson, Executive Director (Resources), reported that last year’s allocation had been overspent, but there had been a surplus from the previous year.  Expenditure in 2023/24 was also likely to exceed the allocation.  Councillor Britcliffe commented that this was extremely good news and meant that many people with a disability or elderly people were being helped to stay in their own homes.  Councillor Younis spoke about the positive impact of DFG monies, for example, for the provision of walk-in showers.  He noted that waiting lists were lengthy.  Councillor Noordad Aziz asked whether the Council could better signpost residents to this grant, particularly as this could facilitate the timely discharge from hospital of elderly people.  Councillor Paddy Short commented demand was increasing and that NHS Occupational Therapy should signpost patients to DFG on discharge from hospital.

Councillor Dad enquired about the slippage regarding he artificial cricket wicket (Page 5 of the report).  Mr Dyson undertook to provide a reply outside of the meeting.

Approval of the report was not deemed a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

The Council had authorised a capital programme of £38.594m at its meeting on the 24^th February 2022 and the programme had subsequently been increased to £45.240m upon the authorisation of the carry forward of projects from the previous year and a variety of in-year authorisations using existing internal funds or new external funding. The programme had largely been funded from existing resources with the exception an approval of £5m of borrowing (if required).

Outturn Position

The Actual expenditure to 31^st March 2023 was £6.564m against the latest approved full year budget of £45.240m.  This equated to 14.51% spend. 

Further details were set out in the report at Appendix 1, which showed that there was expected to be £37.670m of slippage into 2023/2024, of which £35.294m related to the Levelling Up scheme for Accrington Town Centre, the Leisure Estate Investment and Housing Schemes including Disabled Facilities Grants.

There were some scheme overspends in year totalling £33,489, however additional funding had been identified to cover the additional costs of those schemes and they had not increased the net cost within the capital programme.

The remaining schemes within the programme had identified forecast underspends of £1,005,709 due to £968,426 of works now having been incorporated into the successful Levelling Up scheme recently awarded.  The underspends were to be released back into the capital programme and £940,000 had already been earmarked to be set aside as part of the Asset Management / Fire Safety Compliance works as per the report to Cabinet on 8^th February 2023.

The overall net position was that the Capital Programme was forecasting a net underspend of £65,709 in year after the set aside of funds mentioned above.

The significant elements of the programme were as follows:

The detail of individual project budgets and expected costs to complete the projects was provided at Appendix 1.

The overall net position was that the Capital Programme at Period 10 was forecasting a total spend in year of £6.996m and the actual outturn of £6.564m was a reduction of £0.432m, which was largely due to additional slippage on Parks schemes and the Leeds Liverpool Canal Cycle scheme which would now be completed in 2023/2024.

The £6.564m outturn had been financed largely by the use of external grant monies received and the use of capital receipts and reserves held by the council.  There had been no use of prudential borrowing in the financing of the programme and there would be no future implications on the revenue budget due to repayment of principal or interest.

The funding of the programme in 2022/2023 was illustrated in the report as a pie chart.

There were no alternative options for consideration or reasons

Resolved                                    -    Cabinet notes the progress on capital expenditure to date.