Agenda item

Report attached.

The Cabinet considered a report of Councillor Vanessa Alexander, Portfolio Holder for Resources and Council Operations, providingan update on the Council’s Capital Programme.  It set out the outturn position for 2025/26 including variations to the budgets from those reported to Cabinet in January 2026.

Councillor Alexander provided a brief introduction to the report and highlighted the capital outturn position of £19.904m, which equates to 99.93% spend of the latest rephased budget.  This demonstrated efficient programme management on an overall programme of £56.146m the majority of which was being funded externally.  Some £36.230m had slipped into 226/27, principally due to rephasing of Huncoat Garden Village and Levelling Up Fund schemes.  Overall, there had been no need to rely on prudential borrowing, as a result of strong governance and investment income.  She thanked officers for their hard work.

The Leader reported that the controlling group had established a capital oversight group which had met on two occasions to date.  The aim of the group was to ensure good progression on delivery of the programme and to maintain an overview of the position.  Councillor Dad offered to share information from this body with the main Opposition groups.  The Capital Programme was very ambitious and the intention was to complete as much as possible before Local Government Reorganisation.

Councillor Khan acknowledged the need to maintain progress on delivery.  He also noted that s106 funding had accounted for £67,054 of the capital financing and asked whether this had been spent on projects within the locality of the original planning development.  Councillor Alexander confirmed that the Council tried to invest in projects in the same area.  A list of the relevant projects was available.  Councillor Judith Addison made the point that s106 funding was highly regulated and that developers could challenge the Council via arbitration if they believed that the amounts set were excessive.  In Hyndburn’s case, the imposition of s106 burdens could make certain projects unviable.  The Leader referred members to Paragraph 4.9.11 of the Revenue Budget Outturn Report (Minute 42 above  refers) for an explanation of the use of s106 funding.  Martin Dyson, Executive Director (Resources) undertook to provide information on s106 expenditure to Councillor Khan.

Approval of the report was not deemed a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

The Council had authorised new additions to the capital programme of £2.726m at its meeting on the 27^th February 2025.

Since the Council meeting in February 2025, new schemes totalling £30.820m had been approved and added to the programme.  The additional expenditure approved was to be fully funded from by external grants and capital receipts.

In addition, the capital spend outturn from 2024/2025 slipped £23.236m into 2025/2026, of which £12.5m related to the Levelling Up scheme for Accrington Town Centre, the Leisure Estate Investment and Housing Schemes, including Disabled Facilities Grants.

A further £0.633m of capital budgets had been removed from the capital programme.  As a result, the total approved Capital programme now totalled £56.148m.  The table below provided a breakdown:

The current programme of £56.148m was not capable of being delivered in the current financial year.  Therefore, uncompleted elements of £36.230m had been slipped into the future years in which it was expected to be spent.

Outturn Position

The actual expenditure to 31^st March 2026 was £19.904m against the latest rephased budget for 2025/2026 of £19.919m.  This equated to 99.93% spend.

Following the rephasing of the programme budgets, the outturn showed a small underspend of £0.015m with most schemes in line with the budgeted profile and spend in year.

As shown in the table below, £36.230m of budget had been rephased into 2026/2027.  £26.076m related to the scheme at Huncoat Garden Village, £6.454m related to the Levelling Up scheme for Accrington Town Centre, £0.515m to Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre Refurbishment Works, £0.635m to works at King George V Playing Pitches and Pavillion, £0.285 to Disabled Facility Grants and the balance to miscellaneous capital schemes.

The significant elements of the programme spent in year were shown in the table below with a more detailed breakdown shown in Appendix A of the report.

The overall net position was that the Capital Programme at period 9 had forecast a total spend of £21.861m and the actual outturn of £19.904m was a reduction of £1.957m, which was largely due to delays on schemes which would now be slippage into 2026/27.

The £19.904m outturn had largely been financed using 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 the repayment of principal and interest.

The funding of the programme in 2025/26 was illustrated in the report as a pie chart, which set out the following information in a pictorial format:

Close monitoring of the capital programme had been undertaken throughout the year to ensure that the projects were kept in line with spend forecasts and were considered in the Council’s cash flow forecasts.  Deviations from the spending profiles and any financial implications were considered in future treasury and revenue budget forecasts.

There were no alternative options for consideration or reasons.

Resolved                                   -    That Cabinet notes the outturn position for 2025/26 of £19.904m and slippage into 2026/27 of £36.230m.