The Council has decided to approve additions to the Capital Programme for the 2025/26 financial year and note the outturn performance against budget for the 2024/25 financial year.

URL: https://democracy.arun.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=1501

Decision Maker:

Outcome:

Is Key Decision?: No

Is Callable In?: No

Purpose: This report provides a summary of the revenue and capital outturn for the financial year 2024/25 subject to audit compared to the approved budget and highlights the key outturn movements from the forecast provided at Quarter 3.

Content: The Chair invited the Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer to introduce this report which set out the draft Capital, Housing Revenue and General Fund outturn performance against budget for the 2024-2025 financial year. The report also included recommendations for approval for some additions to the Capital Programme for 2025/26 totalling £168k. Approving their addition now, would allow these schemes to progress more quickly.   Returning to the 2024/25 outturn, it was reported that there was a £1.069m underspend compared to the approved budget.  A contribution of £2.4m had still been necessary from usable revenue reserves. A positive to report to members were saving successes where 70 per cent of the on-target savings had been achieved. There were still some pressure points such as temporary and emergency accommodation where the savings target had not been achieved due to increased demand of this service. The committee was advised that it would receive further information during 2025/26.   The Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer reported that the usable reserves balance stood at around £19.2m which was well above the £10m limit set and confirmed as being a safe level. There were robust control processes in place to ensure this which were evidenced by the underspends mentioned earlier putting the council in a fairly strong position and opening opportunities to use reserves for projects like the Angmering Sports Hub project. Turning to the capital programmes, compared to the original budgets, there was an underspend of around £17m in terms of some of the larger regeneration projects such as the Alexandra Theatre, the Littlehampton Seafront project and Bognor Regis Arcade. These saw big carry forwards going through into the new financial year. There were some minor underspends on general fund projects totalling around £169k which were monitored monthly. Turning to the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) capital schemes, there were some significant underspends and talks were taking place with the Group Head of Housing & Wellbeing to tackle how this would be addressed. The HRA outturn confirmed achievement of a surplus of £673k, despite a very challenging year, particularly with the insourcing of the repair and maintenance contract. The HRA reserve balance now stood at around £1.2 m which was above the predicted budget figures and moving the council closer to achieving its aim of £2m.             The recommendations were then proposed by Councillor Walsh and seconded by Councillor Haywood.   Before inviting debate, the Chair outlined that he was very happy to see that the council’s reserves now stood at £19.2m which provided a degree of flexibility. It would be necessary to wait and see what might happen with the Angmering Sports Hub funding applications before the council could assess if there was scope to assist the project from its reserves. The Financial Strategy approved by the council had enabled a healthy percentage of savings to be achieved and work would now focus upon succeeding with the 30 percent of savings still outstanding. The Chair thanked the Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer and his team for the report and keeping the council in a strong financial position.             Questions asked related to the Economy Committee and the £81k costs for Arun Arts where more detail was requested. The Director of Growth confirmed that those costs were costs that the council could not be capitalised. They were revenue costs because Arun Arts were displaced from their theatre. It was queried why this had not been brought before the Economy Committee and it was explained that this was because this matter did not require the committee’s approval as it was an integral part of the works.             The Committee                       RESOLVED – That   (1)  The Policy & Finance Committee recommends to Full Council that the additions of £168k to the Capital Programme 2025/26 as shown in section 4.4 are approved; and   (2)   Members are also asked to note the report in relation to the revenue and capital outturn for 2024/25.

Date of Decision: July 8, 2025