Issue - meetings

Item FP 15/5 referred from Finance, Innovation and Property Advisory Board minutes of 7 January 2015

Item FIP 15/5 referred from Finance, Innovation and Property Advisory Board Minutes of 7 January 2015.

The Cabinet received the recommendations of the Finance, Innovation and Property Advisory Board at its meeting on 7 January 2015 in relation to the initial stage of the Capital Plan review process.  It was agreed that all budgetary matters would be considered in detail at the subsequent Budget meeting of the Cabinet on 12 February 2015.

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Finance and Transformation which reviewed the current position of the existing Capital Plan (List A).  It also recommended new schemes for addition to List C, some existing List C schemes for deletion or evaluation and schemes for inclusion on List B from those List C schemes previously selected for evaluation.  Members were reminded that any aspirations in respect of capital schemes needed to be set within the context of the significant financial challenge facing the Council.

Reference was made to the ongoing review by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee of the process by which capital renewals provisions were determined.  An updated Capital Strategy was presented and it was noted that the Peer Review Challenge had reinforced the recognition that future strategies would need to take into account the fact that the main source of funding for new Capital Plan schemes, the Revenue Reserve for Capital Schemes, was expected to be exhausted in 2018/19 at which stage the Council would need to borrow to fund such expenditure.

RECOMMENDED:  That the following be endorsed for consideration by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee:

(1)         the Capital Plan (List A) position as shown in Annex 2 to the report;

(2)         the amendment of List C as detailed in paragraph 1.5.1 of the report;

(3)         the selection for evaluation of those List C schemes shown in paragraph 1.6.3 of the report including one for fast track evaluation;

(4)         the transfer of the schemes listed in paragraph 1.7.6 of the report from List C to List B noting: 

(i)               in respect of the Tonbridge Town Lock scheme the additional funding requirement of £100,000 to that currently reflected in the Capital Plan, to be met from a pending developer contribution and in the interim from the Council’s own resources;

(ii)              the Tonbridge School Athletics Track Improvements scheme expected to be progressed in 2018/19 subject to the identification of developer contributions/external grant sources;

(iii)            in respect of the Larkfield Leisure Centre Health Suite Refurbishment scheme the additional funding requirement of £60,000 to that currently reflected in the Capital Plan; and

(5)         endorsement of the draft Capital Strategy as set out at Annex 5 to the report for adoption and publication on the Council’s website.
*Referred to Cabinet