Finance and Performance Scrutiny Sub-Committee - Tuesday 4 February 2025, 6:00pm - Folkestone & Hythe webcasting

Finance and Performance Scrutiny Sub-Committee
Tuesday, 4th February 2025 at 6:00pm 

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Good evening everyone and welcome to this meeting of the Finance and Performance Scrutiny
Subcommittee. Due to technical issues this meeting is being recorded and is not being
webcast live to the Internet. The recording of this meeting will be uploaded to the Internet
as soon as possible. For those who do not wish to be recorded or filmed you will need
to leave the chamber. For members, officers and others speaking in the meeting, it is
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respect.
Good evening everyone.
Ok, a longer agenda ahead so we'll get started.
Item number 1, Jack apologies for absence.
Thank you chair we have apologies from Councillor Bookture and Davison and we have Councillor
Chapman as substitute.
Thank you.
Ok item number 2 declarations.
Do any members have anything they wish to declare as an interest?
Councillor Wing.
Thank you chair just as a direct talk or two nurse.
Ok, thank you noted.
And, okay, the first of our quarter three performance reports to start the meeting.
So item number three is the General Fund Budget Monitoring for Quarter Three.
And Lydia to introduce briefly, thank you.
Thank you very much.
I have an update for you because as you know this is always a moving feast.
We were awaiting confirmation from the actress of the pension strain and had to issue your
So the paper that will be published later on tonight that will be going to cabinet will
show an improved position from the 94k forecast deficit to 10k and that was based on a movement,
as I said, on a combination from pension administrators and actuaries that there was a reduction in
the pension stream.
So I thought I would bring that to your attention.
As you know, we report the higher level without the movement from reserves as we do have no
movements that will come through under quarter three
that we agreed are from Ring Friends grants,
such as the homelessness grants, et cetera, from staff.
And by the time we've moved that,
as you will see from the report, we
do move into a surplus position.
And that is partly due to an additional grant that's
being received under homeless prevention
as well that could be utilized in the air.
Happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Lillian. Members, do we have anything we wish to question,
query or clarify with regards to the report?
Councillor Martin, you're looking like you may be.
I was just trying to make sense of my notes.
Obviously, quite a lot of the themes follow through from our previous meeting.
One of the big variances obviously is around the housing benefits and the pain that we
feel from the rent allowance payments.
I don't think we need to discuss that anymore.
Nothing's really changed.
I had a couple of specific questions.
Under the, hang on, on my version of page 12, kind of people and customer services,
I wondered what this £55 ,000 was for a taking stock one day return to work. I wasn't sure
what that was. Yes, I've got a couple of others as well.
Anyone has an answer to that?
Thank you, Councillor Martin, and thank you, Chair.
So that relates to specifically in the Civic Centre, actually,
we've reopened the first floor.
So this was a budget that was set aside
to deal with reopening the first floor, booking systems,
and the like that have been going on to ensure, obviously,
bringing more staff back into the office,
given the change of working practice in the authority.
So that's what that budget specifically
relates to in terms of the software that was required
in ensuring we had the right equipment on the first floor
that was reopened and is now being used by staff.
Thank you.
So the way I read it, I thought it was a one -day session
that was costing 55 ,000, but it's getting all the...
OK, thank you.
That makes sense.
And then within here, there's obviously various kind of exit
presumably as part of the restructure,
and I'm assuming that all of those
amounts were essentially funded by
the money that the Council put aside
as part of the restructuring budget.
Yes, I can confirm that under the
transformation all those exit payments
have been funded through the transformation
reserve, although we report and within
services the transformation reserve
will come back in to fund those.
Thank you.
And then on, this is the one I was dithering on just now,
so on my page 15,
let me just bear with me a second.
Right, so I'll tell you what I've written in my notes,
I was looking for a bit of explanation around the corporate estates and development overspend,
in particular relating to Otterpool property and government review.
I'm struggling to actually find that on the sheet now.
Page 16.
Ah, yes, yes.
Yes, you're right, Timmy.
So yeah, 3 .9.
It's just if you could provide a bit more of an explanation as to what that's about.
I'm afraid I'll have to take that more away for details for you, sorry, colleges.
I think it's to do with the allocation of utility bills.
And they hadn't been recovered for a budgeted for.
and it's costs that we bear under the unused properties, as far as I'm aware.
Is that correct, Moncela?
Yes.
But I can give you a more thorough...
I'll get that in email from you from the estates team for you.
Any others, Councillor Allen?
Just a couple of things that I noted from me,
just in terms of where we were in Q2, largely due to staff.
So some of our underspans have reduced.
So I mean, environmental protection and licensing, for example, our forecast for our underspans
has reduced.
So would it be right to assume that vacancies have been filled in both of those?
and yeah, okay so just, which is good, but just clarifying that.
There was a few of those but just wanted to clarify that was due to staff being finally
appointed.
Okay, there's nothing else.
Are we happy to receive a note, this report?
Okay, all in favour?
Okay, thank you.
Okay, so that was item three.
So item four again, monitoring, and this is the General Fund Capital Program monitoring.
Anyone want to say, is there anything to say about where we are?
Just I think the report explains movements, as you know the report to you in the year,
As you know, with capital programmes, it's generally difficult to forecast the spending
year and the projects are sometimes overrun.
So hopefully happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Lydia.
Members, do we have anything we want to raise as part of the capital programme as it is
in year?
Councillor Martin.
Yeah, thank you.
So not getting into the topic we've discussed a few times, so obviously things get delayed
and money gets moved out into other years and clearly that's happening on some of these
bigger topics, coach drive, waterfall, so on.
I guess just an open question, when we've discussed this before we've always just assumed
that the council would continue exist onwards into the future which it won't do now, so
So just curious, do we need to look at that any differently?
Is there any, will we reach a point where we have to crystallise some of these things
in our plans as we hand over?
What does that generally look like?
Under the Local Government Reform Bill there will be guidance on how councils may or may
not continue to proceed with major projects and commitments until such time it's business
as usual, so that's how we've been asked to continue to work and that's how we will work
until that legislation is laid before Parliament and we give them the clear directions. But
yes, there will be a point where we won't have any powers to be able to procure or contract
etc, but when that will be and the limitations that they'll put on us will appear as and
when.
Tim, did you want to add something on that?
More of another response to that, Billy, which was that, yeah, we're going to meet for a
lot of the projects and we're starting to have that conversation now about the do, delegate
or dump conversation.
Is this something we can get done in the next two years?
Is this something we're going to pass off to a successor authority or to someone else?
Or is this something you stop doing now and let somebody else worry about?
So examples of doing, I think at the moment, would be things like coast drive.
pretty confident we can get Co -Strike done, complete in two years time, it'll be up, running,
fully open, etc.
Brighter place project as well, again, should be a completed thing, would have taken all
the government money and spent it on all the things that they gave us that money to do.
And then there are a few other things that you look at and go, probably not financial
system, we're going to buy a new shiny financial system that would support this organisation
for the next 10 years.
Seems a bit over specked by about 8 years.
So yeah, there will be a number of conversations there as to what you do.
That said, the next two years can't be hell on earth for the people trying to produce
accurate accounting for the year.
So what's the balance between it doesn't really work now and we've still got two years to
do this and I really don't want to spend a million quid on doing it on a system that
a new authority may well not use at all.
So you've got those balancing questions.
So yeah, there are a number of questions which are going to be had about those,
and I think that will crystallise more over the next six months or so
as we start to learn what's happening to things.
But yeah, we're already alive to the question that some of the stuff that we're just not going to do.
But most of the big lumpy numbers you see at the top there are things that we expect that we will get done before we're out of the building.
Anything else, Councilman?
Anyone else?
Yeah, I mean, I was going to just briefly ask about the financial system.
It does seem like the one thing that's potentially a little bit out of place in terms of the long -term vision.
And so, is that sort of, do we, has any work been done in terms of working out the system
that we got?
Could that at least get us through the next two years?
Or potentially even one year I guess, because we might know earlier in 12 months time perhaps
what sort of system we'll need to merge into, you know, once whatever shadow authority comes
out we might know what that system is.
So do you think we could get there with what we've got and save that capital investment
or would we potentially know that before the start of the financial year hopefully?
The answer is yes.
We are presenting a paper tomorrow to CLT which looks at both the risks and the benefits
and non -benefits of actually continuing the procurement that you proposed on the upgrade
to the financial system.
The current financial system hasn't been formally updated
or kept up to date for nearly 20 years,
and therefore it is quite clunky, it is not user -friendly,
it doesn't integrate easily,
it puts a huge amount of pressure on a small finance team,
which is relatively small
because they're having to export and manually manipulate a lot of it
because the finance system that they're working with
doesn't allow them to create new sets of chance of accounts, etc.
So there are both financial and resource risks
associated with not moving forward,
the biggest one being around cyber security
and the fact that we aren't on the cloud with this finance system
and advance who support the current financial system
aren't continuing to support it or develop it.
So, that will be discussed and we do know the financial implications at CLT tomorrow
and I'm sure that will be coming forward for discussion with our relevant portfolio holders.
The timeline for procurement is we were due to go to procurement this April and have it
up and running for the next financial year, so that's financial year 2026.
The recommendation is potentially going to be that we should continue because of the
benefits of just even just moving to a cloud system and financial benefits on the licenses,
et cetera.
So there is a financial case to support moving away from our current system.
However, you know, that will be more formally reported and is well open for discussion at
CLT tomorrow.
But my personal recommendation as your 151 is that we really should be considering it.
The life of the organisation within its current financial systems
for reporting and legacy and historic reporting and keeping data
is probably four years before we look to go to an integrated system
with a new organisation.
So we've got four years.
To stay where we are for four years
I think would be extremely detrimental to your financial reporting.
Thanks for that, Lydia. Very helpful.
Okay, if no one has anything else on this item are we happy to receive the report or
in favour?
Okay, thank you.
Okay, item number five, the last of our quarter three monitoring reports, so our HOA budget
monitoring report both for revenue and capital.
members have anything they wish to raise as part of this?
Yes, Councillor Martin.
Thank you, just on the maintenance costs, so we're saying that quite a significant increase
is over expected is entirely from inflation.
And I wonder if we could just speak a little bit more
about that and I mean I assume that's a material cost
as opposed to human resources and I'm just interested
to know how our contracts work and how we're protected
from that or the visibility we have around inflation
coming through.
So can I ask what page you're referring to, Councillor Martin, just so I can get the correct
answer?
Well, so the numbers on... it's just the variance that we're showing on the increase in repairs
and maintenance cost.
So 2 point...
I think it's explained in 2 .6.
It's on page 31, I think.
Councillor Lomata, in general terms, while Andy looks at the detail for you, we had forecast
and inflationary rates, because all our contracts do generally have RPI or CPI built within
them for uplifts.
And we had built in forecasts, I can't remember, at a certain percentage, but when things have
come back contractually, the CPI and RPI were effectively higher than we'd actually forecast.
I believe that's almost correct.
Yeah, thanks.
And then on top of that, you've got the disrepair claims, which we've spoken about previously,
which are particularly challenging at the moment with the no -win, no -fist list as we
go around essentially touting for business.
So it's something we're trying to deal with, but it's a sector -wide problem, which is taking
a lot of resource, both financial and time, offers a time, away from improving tenants'
times when we're dealing with these solicitors essentially who are going around knocking
on doors and you know exactly when it's happening because you'll get four or five kind of from
the same estate so it's a real problem for us at the moment and it is very costly and
the cost from that is generally the solicitors fees.
We have one recently where I think £400 was paid out in compensation to the tenant and
the legal fees of the solicitors got over £5 ,000 so these are the sort of things that
to deal with and pick up through the housing revenue account, which is really disappointing.
I guess that's a relatively small amount compared to the bigger one that we're attributing to
inflation, but if I understood your answer correctly, essentially when we budgeted, we
were expecting a lower inflation than we actually saw through the contracts.
I guess that moment's passed now and inflation's generally going, maybe isn't, I don't know,
The means of contract is a big number as well, so when you apply a small percentage it still
ends up being a big number.
Anyone else have anything on this?
I'd just like to add that obviously it looks like we're on track to spend all of our capital
budget, which I think is the first time since I've been a Councillor that I've seen that
in a year without significant rollovers.
So I just say, well done, and thank you very much.
It's great to see that the windows going into roofs and windows and everything else is there.
Are you going to burst my bubble now?
I was going to say thank you, and I would just point out that I think we were very close
last year, too.
So close, but not as good as this.
Receive a note of that report.
All in favour?
Thank you.
Okay, so that was item 5, I think.
Now I've lost my agenda.
Too many pieces of paper.
So item 6.
Okay, so now we move on to the papers for the next financial year, 25 -26.
So item 6 is the first one of those, the draft housing rent setting budget report.
Does someone want to introduce this?
Jonathan?
Thank you, Chair.
So yes, this report basically sets out the rent setting for the next financial year.
It deals with sort of the CPI increases proposed for the HRA rents and also service charges
as well and also to things like the share -downship as well, share -dwellings, the increase is
there.
So it's purely a, it's setting out effectively what will, would form the basis of the rent
increases for HRA tenants.
I hope you take any questions.
Thank you.
Members, do we have anything we wish to?
Do you want to add something, Tim?
Yeah, I just wanted to flag one thing in here because the, obviously the HRA revenue and
capital budgets, you look at them and you're always thinking in terms of the increasing
rents there and the increase in service fees and the impact that's having on people.
This is a balancing act between what you charge people and what their houses cost and what
you're spending that money on.
I think it's in 3 .1 .2 and 3 .1 .3 that that's the crystalline.
3 .1 .2 is showing that we look to add at least the 70 units to the HRA, so that's 44 units
in Shumcliffe 26 units in Hyde, on the capital that they're doing in the state, were meant
to be, the business plan, which is only just over a year old really, was saying 20 a year.
That's 70 a year.
Now, I think it's fair to say that that's a bold year, don't expect 70 every year, but
the financing of that has, is met by the rents and the charges of this council.
and the reason why we put them up is not because we think that's a fun thing to do.
It's in order to pay for increasing the number of houses that we've got
so other people can join the houses, can get council houses,
and to improve the council houses that we've got
so the people living in the council houses have got the best possible accommodation
that we can offer them.
So that's the balancing act we've always got,
obviously with the income and expense from those things,
but often you look at it and go,
well, we're not actually adding as much as we wanted to,
we feel that there is a really strong good news story in here in 3 .1 .2 which is saying
that they're actually adding a lot of new stock and a lot of brand new houses which
will go to council tax at council residents and council tenants at council house rates
and that's a really positive thing.
So although the headlines on this is our rate will be going up,
and it will be, but at 2 .7 % not hugely going up,
we have had significant losses in that.
Also look at what is going on.
It's going on making sure that more people can take advantage
of that service and more people get a good service,
out of that service as well.
I find that there's a really good balance there
in terms of what's being delivered
for what's being charged.
Thank you for that, Chair.
Councillor Wing.
Thank you, Chair. I suppose it's going to be a bit like
when we're talking about devolution.
I mean, events will have to be equalised amongst all the councils
within the new unitary.
I mean, I presume they will.
Are they going to be separate to the area?
Or does nobody know yet? Are we waiting to hear from that?
Because I wonder if there will be a time
we start working more in use.
The figures in this, we're quite good actually in the area, aren't we?
Our rents are reasonable, aren't they, compared to our barriers.
You know, are we going to pick a medium point and then go for it?
Just wondering if anybody's got any ideas, you know, or is it black looks and faces?
All right, our rates, our affordable rents are set by local housing allowance, so people
in the receipt of 100 % of housing benefit
can afford to pay their rent.
Now, there are different areas within Kent.
We're currently linked with Dover.
So we have the same affordable rents as Dover.
Ashford have a slightly higher rent.
So Canterbury, again, is probably lower than Ashford,
but higher than Dover's in ours.
So unless those boundaries have changed
with how the LHA is calculated, the rents
should remain the same.
Obviously, there's a big, huge caveat around that
that nobody actually knows.
But according to the LHA race and how they're set currently,
if that continues, then the rents, in theory,
should change the same.
We have different rents for different areas
now because part of New Romney falls within the Ashford
boundary.
So we have a slightly different rent down there
than we do in Fodston.
So I would imagine that there's going
to be a lot of things to sort out through local government
reorganization.
I wouldn't imagine this will be top of the list.
So I think they will stay the same for the time being.
Anyone else have anything they wish to add?
Okay.
Obviously this will come to Cabinet and Council.
This is just for us to add any comments if we have any.
So if there's no more we're happy to receive and note the report.
And then that report links into item number seven, which is the draft HOA budget for the
next financial year, 25 -26, both for revenue and capital.
That's item seven.
Jonathan, did you want to?
Thank you, Chair.
So yes, this document basically sets up the full revenue and capital budgets proposed
for the HRA and effectively demonstrates the adherence to the HRA business plan, which
was set last year in February in terms of there's a pipeline for new build properties.
It deals with sort of the growth items which are listed out in relevant sections, I think
around in section 3 for the capital programme and any sort of key movements in section 2
on the revenue. I'm happy to take any questions.
Members, do we have anything we wish to raise as part of this?
Councillor Martin.
Thank you. I was just wondering if you could just simply, because I didn't quite understand
what was going on, so under the revenue contribution to capital expenditure, we're seeing quite
quite a change from one year to the next and then in the comments we're talking about the
capital financing loan and so on.
I just wonder if you can just add a bit of colour to what's going on there.
Seems quite a big change.
Happy to.
Thank you, thank you, Councillor Martin.
Effectively, the RCCO, the Revenue Contributions Capital, is where the HRA's revenue funds,
places funds towards its capital programme.
If you strip away the capital programme from the HRA,
it would technically generate a surplus
because the income is higher than the expenditure,
but of course that fullies the fact that you have to maintain your stock.
So obviously we have a capital programme
and basically on the revenue budget
you'll have the revenue contribution to capital line,
which effectively, as I said, is funding the capital programme.
The movement in the RCCO, as it's called,
is just down to any movement on the capital programme.
So depending on the size of the capital programme,
you might have a bigger draw from the revenue budget
to support the capital programme, because otherwise,
the capital programme is limited to what's called the MRR,
so the major repairs reserve, which is just a set amount.
It goes into technical accounting around that.
It's basically the depreciation.
The accounting depreciation is ring -fenced
to fund the capital programme.
But effectively, the RCCO is just a moving figure
based on the varying levels of the total capital expenditure
on the capital budget.
And it just so happens in this particular year,
we are funding more via capital financing or the like,
rather than using the revenue budget itself.
So that's just the movement.
Hopefully, that makes sense.
There's a lot of movements in the RCCO to talk through.
I have another one.
I'm just going to digest that and look back at the report.
Okay.
While I wait for you again, Councillor, I just wanted to see if we can get a question
about obviously the increase in budget for new builds for the upcoming year, which is
excellent.
But I'm just wondering how that would affect, or if it would affect at all, the long -term
business plan.
I don't know if the business plan's been significantly altered due to that significant
increase.
And if it does, is it available to have a look at if it's been significantly refreshed?
Thank you, Chair.
So effectively, the HRAE Visitor Plan obviously set the framework that we were working to
effectively for £5 million a year.
Now we've effectively built what's called an HRAE pipeline, just i .e. there's a number
of schemes that are available, which I know that the Director of Housing Operations, who
can probably answer more on that, has sort of set across effectively a four or five year
period.
So we're looking at and forecasting what schemes might be available.
Now there is obviously some scope to either flex either way,
whether if for example we have underspend in one particular year,
we can carry forward that budget of say that 5 million into the next year.
Or we could either flexing it forwards or flexing it backwards.
We also have the ability to use any sort of capital receipts that we might receive as well to support the program.
So it will be based on the availability of schemes and it is something that's moving.
I think it's the term pipeline, but it will be reviewed every year.
I'm sure Andy may have some updates on the actual schemes available.
That effectively answered my question.
If we're looking at four years
and we've got a budget of 20 million split over five,
if we spend 12 in this year, then we've got eight left for the next three years.
But if schemes come forward, then that could change potentially.
Fundamentally, yes.
We are trying to utilize other funds, as Jonathan said,
as well.
So we've got 106 contributions from other schemes.
We've got capital receipts that we're
trying to bring into the program.
And it's a good opportunity at the moment
where we're quite far ahead with some of our other work.
So some of our retrofit work, for example,
we're doing really well there.
I think we're up to about 72 % of homes that are EPCC or above.
So we're absolutely delighted with that.
Decent homes is back up to 98%, I believe,
and making its way our compliance.
we're 100 % across the board on all the big six compliance items.
So some really great work going on, but what we've done as part of this business plan,
the business plan last year, so the 30 -year business plan was the most detailed business plan we've ever done.
Now we've interrogated that further coming into this year and the understanding that we have of our stock.
So our capital works team, for example, the understanding of what they're doing and how that work is profiled
and how that can be flexed to make sure that we maintain a million pounds a year for our
retrofit work to make sure that we maintain five million pounds a year for the new build
work and that we can keep on top of our compliance and we can pay the higher price for the new
maintenance contract that starts later this year because obviously that's gone up due
to inflation over the last 10 years.
It really is really detailed work but it all comes down essentially to the understanding
of the team, the expert help of the finance team, and just how well that is all working
together.
But we're delighted with the, getting back to the main point, which is a new build budget,
there's opportunities at the moment where the housing associations and the like that
aren't maybe as far along in their retrofit journey as we are.
And we're still going along, we've still got lots of work to do, but we're making really
good progress because of that.
The housing associations and that, because they're not, are not buying new stock at the
So we're getting developers approaching us where we can, there's opportunities out there
in the market where we can secure units probably cheaper than we would have been at any other
time and it makes a lot of sense to take advantage of that as long as we can do the right deal
for the council and the right deal for our tenants because at the end of the day it's
got to stack up for the HR rate, it's got to be buyable, it's got to tick the boxes
on all of our financial metrics on our viability software and it's got to be in the right location
it's got to sort out the people that need the help so there's still lots of
things to do but there's some really promising conversations going on at the
moment we're in the final stages of finalizing two deals which should secure
26 units on one site in Hyde, six units in Liming, 16 units I think 14 units in
in New Romley on top of the Taylor wimpy deal that we've just done so you're
getting up to that 90 units 100 unit mark obviously we've just sold big ones
with a registered provider coming in there to offer all the homes for affordable rents,
like 77 units, so not all affordable rent, half affordable rent, half shared ownership.
So things are really starting to move in this arena and it's really exciting, it's really
good news for the district.
Councillor Martin, did you think of your other point?
You're all good?
Okay then, if there's nothing else, shall we receive a note, Mr. Paul? Okay. That's
the first one. Okay. The main event of the evening, item number eight, draft general
fund budget for 25 -26. Lydia, I expect, will you want to say something on this before we
start Tim as well or not? Would you like to Tim?
Thank you very much. As you know this is the culmination of months and months of work and
is your draft presented today is was prepared when we haven't received the final settlement,
We received the final settlement from government yesterday and confirmation of the payment
to us.
As reported within the report, for us it was a disappointing settlement because in real
terms it didn't compensate us for the contractual pressures and increases that we faced under
contracts and inflation, et cetera.
There are some minor movements that you will see between your report and the one that go
into cabinet because there were some minor confirmations of our list.
So, for example, the compensation under the increases to employers' NI contributions,
we'd have to estimate that.
Our estimate was 16K short to what we have received, so there are some iron movements.
We have included in the paper the detail around the service movements, and there is some slightly
reorganisation under the table because governments and finance are now coming under a single,
under the two -director model.
So, you know, happy to take any questions and hopefully the details in the report gave
you sufficient to understand that we have gone through a robust process.
We have kept growth to a minimum.
You know, we are still in a significant strain and obviously now with local government reform
there are potential strains coming forward under those two years because of restructures,
potential redundancies, and there are a number of contingent liabilities that have arisen
through that we are aware of that we can't quantify.
So when the final papers come to you to Cabinet and to full council, you will see that the
executive have had to create a financial sustainability reserve, I think we're calling it, to deal
with those matters that we know are arising but we can't formally quantify yet.
So it's a good budget, it's balanced, we're making the most of the grants that we receive
to continue to fund posts and to fund services.
There are no cuts or reductions in any frontline services that we're delivering and it has
been difficult but we are there and hopefully the Executive will be putting that forward
to Council for your consideration.
Okay, I'll colour in the very clear picture we've got there in round.
This is, as I said, the papers which are going to Cabernet, I think, may just have gone to
Cabernet.
I could hear a sort of vague pinging as Lydia ran down the stairs at six o 'clock, the budget
going down.
Things have been changing, including as Lydia said yesterday, the financial settlement actually
came out.
I think the email I had from Jonathan yesterday was at a time of quarter to ten,
as the team were going line through it,
seeing if there was any good news in there.
Spoiler alert, not a lot.
He flagged up there was about 15 ,000 of better news in NI,
and there might be something lurking in an inland waterway somewhere,
but we don't know yet.
And it should be...
That gets the backdrop of what was a less helpful settlement than we hoped it was.
So for instance when the Chancellor at the Budget turned around and said we will protect
councils, districting any councils against the N .I.
goals that we're making there and we will fully fund that.
When they said we will fully fund that, they meant we will fund just about less than half
of that.
So the protect, and that news improved by about £15 ,000 worth, we thought it was about
200 ,000 pounds, if we bank 215 ,000 pounds,
that we're actually getting,
we're about 200 to 250 ,000 pounds in the hole for that change.
So you protected us by not very much.
Not as well as you could have done.
Not as bad as town and parish councils
who've had to fund the entire lot, obviously,
but it still hurts.
There are also going to be additional pressures
and changes that have happened
since the first draft went through,
since the changes that are going through.
so you've got things like there's an ongoing pay award discussion with the unions, which
I understand is going at the consultation soon. The numbers on that are marginally different
to those that are in the budget originally, so there will be a modification in terms of
doing that. There are decisions.
Just on that, Tim, what is budgeted for in terms of...
It was budgeted for this year, I believe, at 4 % increase, or a minimum of £1 ,500, I
think, was the budget.
So I understand there has been a slight flex, and there'll be a slight additional pressure
in this year if that award is taken.
When I say slight, I mean probably £100 ,000.
In the olden days, I used to think that was a lot of money.
And under the MTFP, what we've done is we are able to flex that off over the MTFP as
well for future years because of the way that we've created the MTFP.
So the pressures, similar to what we're talking about lag and pushing forward, that would
be adjusted in the MTFP depending on what the final two -year segment on the payment
is.
I think there are obviously a few other pressures in there as well.
So you've got decisions of last week, would have put a small additional pressure on the
budget in terms of, as I said, we were budgeting for a saving of the Invisibility System or
of SRAs.
And that has, that that needs to be accounted for, is that that pressure, that that saving
is no longer to be realized in that way, depending on what matters we get back from the Minister.
We've also got questions about, we've been asked to set aside some money for potential
costs on the folks on harbour development, for instance, in terms of potential appeals,
et cetera, that we might be facing there.
So there are moving costs there.
I think broadly, though, that the news at the moment is that despite those moving costs,
as Lydia said, a balanced budget will be brought forward.
we continue to be balanced in the terms of we are not spending general reserve
or popping up the balance of the net. So the general reserve will not be supporting that.
What I think it is fair to say though is that in our earlier paper, the Q3 monitoring,
you're looking at an underspending year after the reserves have been used of about
three quarters of a million and a million pounds and that money is rolled forward
into next year to support that budget.
So it is absolutely being supported by a rollover and we really, really hope that that rollover
does not significantly go down because that would create us all sorts of nightmares.
That's what we'll keep the front desk awake at night for the next three months is that
if that doesn't crystallize, that's a lot of what the budget is predicated on.
So it doesn't spend the reserves that we've got coming forward but it is predicated on
basis of we think we're going to make a saving in this year now, an underspending this year
now, and it's that, added to what we're going to, added to our income for next year, which
then equals the expenditure for next year. So it's, there's no magic in it, it's using
the underspending order to fund next year, which is probably not ideal, and if one was
looking forward to 10, 15 years hence, people would be staring at me and saying, don't do
that, but hey, two years, whatever.
And just to reassure Councillor Prater that the work that we've done over the last few
days, if there are under spends in this year, the recommendation, because we have managed
to balance the budget without considering those, because obviously they've not been
realised, the recommendation would be that we effectively put that into your resilience
reserve because of those unforeseen demands over the next two years.
and that will be our recommendation going forward to Council.
Thank you for that, both of you.
OK, I'll open it up to members for any comments, concerns, queries, questions.
No, otherwise I'll...
Councillor Martin.
Thank you.
I just wondered if we could just take a bit of time
just going through some of the restructure points
because when you look at the, there's some quite big sums of money moving from one row
to another, so some quite big year on year changes around.
So obviously there's the governance, law and democracy, leadership support, people and
customer services, and then planning and building control.
And as I was going through the report, I think I was following it all through and making
but I think it's probably just worthy of us just going through each of those step by step
just to collectively make sure we're all clear on what's going on.
Thank you, Councillor Martin. Thank you, Chair. So this one's quite a complex one because
obviously what we've done is we have actually realigned budgets into relevant portfolios.
That was part of the transformation program.
So things have moved around.
And as you're, for example, taking some of the points
you raise, like for example, governance and finance
now contains governance and finance and governance, law,
and democracy.
And this is part of the transition away
from what we used to have as traditionally a case model
where we'd have a bank of officers
decentralized almost to an extent in corporate services.
But we've moved away from that as part of the transformation.
And so this is realigning budgets.
So step by step might be quite challenging to justify.
Certainly the service expenditure line
is probably the line at which everything then ties back
together.
However, the individual movements,
there are numerous movements that
have taken place across around 250 or so cost centers.
So yeah, that's that's the history of the
background to those movements.
I can recall some leadership
support off the top of my head,
but again, some of it would do with the
taste transition where officers then
are realigned too.
We used to have what was called case, and we had a team that were managing cases.
Those have all been integrated back into the services, so those members of staff and the
teams are now back in the direct services.
So, for example, there were teams within the debt collection service that sat outside in
case that did some of the initial work, and then Joe Robinson's team took it over.
They're now integrated in her team fully.
In the finance team, there were case officers that sat outside.
They're now integrated.
So that was all under the transformation last year.
So that's some of the movements there.
So that would be some of the leadership support extensions.
But I'm sure if you'd like to take this offline, Jonathan and the team would look to give you
more detail.
Thank you.
The other one I noticed, with IT, there seemed that...
IT digital services and ICT seemed to move.
And I think I could make sense of the logic of it, but again I couldn't find it...
GA -9T, both of them.
Everything is the same if you want to know.
Yeah, I think I... Yes.
Got the page.
You're referring to the uplift 132 ,000 in service costs underlying supplies and services.
That would be contractual uplifts and licenses?
Yeah, there's a few.
There's also under, I think it's GA22, so under administration on page 71 you've got
digital services and IT.
We've got quite an increase.
and then I think there's a corresponding budget
where there's a decrease.
It looked on the face of it as though something had moved
from one place to another,
but I just couldn't see an explanation for what was happening.
So do you have the corporate debt?
That's moved, that's the case budgets moved, is that correct?
That would be case, and the staffing costs of the case moving into ICT.
Yeah, and then you've got, so just below that, you've got digital services and IT, where
it was 495 in 24, 25 minutes.
It goes up to 1 .3 million.
So Councillor Martin, on page 76, where it gives the detailed breakdown of the budget
codes, I mean, the majority of that is for restructures as for transformations.
I assume that's redeployment of staff into different areas is what the doing that was
saying.
There's two, one for 73 ,000 and one for 634 ,000 which actually make up the bolt and then there's
increments and pensions.
It's all a decrease of staff but I'm sure that will be accounted for in another budget
code somewhere else.
Yeah, I mean my point was just more a broad point.
Just what do we get for 1 .7 million with regards to ICT operations, with regards to that budget
code?
They do cover the costs of all the development, the applications and the support services.
And obviously they do hold all the costs of all the licenses, et cetera, as well within
that department.
so they're not aggregated out.
Councillor Martin, was that your... Did you have any more?
I might have one.
So, yeah, just on...
When we're showing inflation then on outsource contracts
and household waste and so on,
I'm just interested to see what assumptions are going into that.
and also whether the national insurance change is fully reflected in that, do we think currently?
Yeah, you've got recycling and waste, so we're showing an increase of 110 ,000 due to contract inflation.
I just wondered, is that an amount we know is going to come through or is that an assumption?
It's confirmed that the waste contract, all those figures have been confirmed by our contractors,
so they're not estimates, they are actual.
Anyone else?
Otherwise I've got a few things for myself.
A couple of just broader sort of points.
The increase in the new homes bonus, is that just, has it just been a much better year
for house building in the district or, you know, has government changed their formula
in any way that would lead us to get quite an increase on last year?
Because last year was a very low year, so.
Our new homes bonus, we effectively don't use it as within our budget as a full.
We transfer it into a reserve and use that because it's a numbering fence grant to balance
our reserves and in previous years we haven't had to draw on it as much as this year, but
this year we are drawing on a higher sum.
So that's more the reserve that's being utilised rather than the payment?
Okay.
Rather than the grant that we receive.
The grant that we receive has reduced new year.
Yeah.
Do we know what the latest grant was?
If not the hand then...
I believe it was in the paper.
Newham's bonus was $431 ,593.
So this year we are using the full allocation.
So that is, okay, so it's a much better grant than we've received in the last couple of
years then.
I mean, just a thing point, but when you say the papers have already gone to cabinet, I
in any way or relabeled in any way.
It's obviously one of the service headings in terms of names.
I know there's going to be some slight movement, isn't there,
in terms of not so much in the figures,
but where they lie in terms of the service managers.
I don't believe that we're changing the reporting for Cabinet or Council
from the current format that you've got in front of you.
Okay.
So, the reason comes to be that the two episodes was one of the big ones, which is the second
one, the next one.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Okay.
They were a couple of general points.
Mentioned ICT.
I noticed that there was some growth in GL00, which is legal, which is excellent.
We need some support in that area.
GH11.
So talks about a retro, you might know this Andy, talks about a retrofit decarved team
for $185 ,000, what is a retrofit D -card team, and how big is a team, and what do we do?
So our D -card team, who we've spent considerable time training over the last three to four
years, exceptionally skilled in what they do now, they have been grant funded up to
point. So as part of the HRA budget, which you've seen already this evening, there is
£185 ,000 built in for their wages costs, which will come through to the general fund
budget, because that's where obviously the wages are paid from. But that's picked up
through the HRA. So we want to retain their services. We've still got a million pounds
worth of decarbonisation work to deliver every year. We will still be applying for more grants,
whether that's social housing decarbonisation fund or a different type.
But if we don't retain our staff, we won't be able to do that work.
They are very highly skilled and would get snapped up in a jiffy now
when we do not want that to happen because they are great.
They have been doing amazing things with our stock.
We want that to continue.
Okay. I don't know if you'll remember because it's a long time ago,
but remember when we were talking about the implementation
of the first wave of the decarbonisation scheme
You were talking about building a team that could, instead of hiring the contractors out
to do the work, so I assume this is this team that does it now in -house.
Is that all linked to that long -term goal and plan from before we began the work on
Wave 1?
The short answer is yes.
I can leave it there or I can expand.
No, we still use some consultants. I mean the first
way of doing it was using tier one contractors. So we were very
much a form the client function.
As we've gone through that process, we've realized using
tier one contractors, which is the preferred method of working
with MHC LG. They want it to work like that. We've pushed
back against that because we realize how much wastage there
was in the system.
paying all the cost of Tier 1 contractors and the consultants
to manage that and the way the wastage that was going through
the system with all the monitoring. We've come away from
that and we set up all of our own contracts to do all the
evaluation and analysis works. If you want to assess the
condition of the properties and then use that information to
inform our own contracts that we've put out as a tender to do
the actual work. So when we're letting a contract is for the
works alone because we've already got all the assessment
data in and through this whole process our team have become
very skilled. We're looking at now PAS 2035, which is the
accreditation. Our team are very skilled in that we're
looking at employing a stock condition surveyor to rather
than paying a huge amount of money to get a stock survey
done every five years of all our stock because it's evolved in a
daily basis and EPC's are improving and stuff like that.
we're going to employ our own stock surveyors that go around on a cyclical basis rather
than a big hit. So our stock data will be much better which will then allow us to apply
for funding because on all these funding streams you've got to have an accurate picture of
all your stock. So there's loads of things that the team are doing and they're really,
really good at it and I'm really proud to have them.
Thanks.
What's the next one?
CE45.
So we're looking at...
They didn't go into my Word document in the order that I wrote down on the sheet.
So, one sec.
There it is.
Yeah, so CE45 on street parking.
So we're looking at, well, budgeting for an increase of over $200 ,000 in terms of income
from last year, which is great, I mean, but just wanted to sort of get a bit of context
as to is that just purely linked to the increase in fees and charges or are there other elements
coming in that are accounting for that quite large increase.
I think it's the increase in fees and charges and also operating hours and usage.
First of all, obviously it's all been agreed but that's the main changes.
Thank you for that.
EE25, Folkestone Sports Centre.
Obviously it's still in the state that it's in, we're still waiting for news, but obviously
there's 150 budgeted in there next year.
The previous agreement with the previous owners of the Sports Center was approved by Cabinet
to fund them 150 ,000 a year, and it was really meant to be conditional upon a mutual agreement
that they would meet certain standards, provide certain levels of information, etc.
There's still 75 ,000, as far as I'm aware, half of this year's budget being held.
So I just don't know how, without knowing who the new owner is, what agreement the Council
is going to have in place for them, how we can agree to have that 150 in there.
I don't know if anyone wants to say anything about that.
I'll have a go.
Obviously, whilst the whole thing with the Sports Centre unfolds, the Council is obviously
still very supportive of that provision carrying on, and we thought it was prudent to leave
that in the budget until that is all finalized and the new owner, operator will require some
contribution to funding.
So we're assuming that they will.
And we're leaving that in there as a prudent measure to help support that for now.
But I think the arrangement that's in place now is only a grant funding agreement for
one more year.
So then it will have to be reviewed by members following that.
But would the old agreement still stand even though it's a new operator who have a new
perhaps financial portfolio, perhaps their financial situation is not as dire as what
was the old sports trust.
Could consideration be given to budgeting 75 ,000 and retaining the 75 ,000 from in -year
so that in the next financial year should an agreement be made?
I can't see an agreement being made with the new owners and cabinet prior to the end of
this financial year.
I don't know if that's something people would want to consider.
I think I can help.
We'll see.
See the anti -deaths.
I am all, I think.
No, it's just a dozen lighter.
As you say, the agreement with the previous year was effectively £150 ,000 a year for
a three -year agreement.
contract in order to support the provision of swimming, specifically swimming, within
Folkswell. The conversations we've had with a number of the potential operators that have
approached the administrator in terms of taking it on, a number of them have a discussion
with us to give you the contract was, or that support was known, and in almost all cases
they were seeking confirmation that as long as the same service would be provided, whether
contract would remain, whether that support would remain A to the end of this contract
period and frankly having a discussion about how about beyond that as well because swimming
loses money.
You don't make money off swimming, it's an expensive thing and they're a service loss
leader.
Dry sports you can pretty much, you can make money off.
Wet sports you pretty much can't if you have to heat the thing.
And that's the basis on which the discussion that had been
in the Council with a number of those operators that then
is that broadly agreed that if they were going to provide the
service that we were going to be getting from the previous
operator and they were going to reopen that service as soon as
possible so that people could actually swim and to be taught
to swim again, then we would retain the existing level of
support through the three years at this stage, including the funding which has not been spent
in this year. So that would also, because they'll have significant cost in reopening
the thing, whoever it is, is going to spend some considerable thousands of pounds in getting
it reopened and back up and working and clean and ready to receive people. Where this Council
then goes after that three years is obviously a question that we're going to start to have
over the course of the next few months in terms of that, I would have suggested that
if this council was taking on running its own sports facility in Fodson, £150 ,000 a
year doesn't touch the sights of what you're doing. And if one could secure swimming at
the sports centre and secure the future of that sports centre for £150 ,000 a year of
support, then you should take their leg off for it. But broadly, yes, we are, as long
as the operator is going to reopen it, is going to do so in a reasonable period of time,
and they're just going to make sure that there's swimming there, I think we are committed to
funding, to that £150 ,000 through next year, plus the remaining £75 ,000 of this year to
be paid to them, as long as they can make the case that they're actually going to do
it and do it well.
Okay, thank you.
And just, I mean, just on that, just come to me.
Do we know if the capital grant funding that we were holding for the sports center for
works to like the Poodle and Pump Room and all that, do we know if that's still, have
we still retaining that for a new operator or have we had to give that back to central
government or if not, I'll chase it up outside.
This is the sporting and funding.
We were never holed in that that was awarded directly to the Sports Centre.
I believe it is still available to be used by an incoming operator
as long as it can be used before 31st March.
Of this year?
What's next?
HH51, lifeline.
Obviously, Cabinet approved some measures in the last year to try and make Lifeline
a more sort of cost neutral service.
Be right sort of in that sort of thinking.
So obviously it's still slightly underlined.
I didn't know if there was sort of any more plans to do anything with Lifeline to try
and ensure that it has a balanced budget in terms of income and expenditure moving forward.
It's under the review all the time.
Can you just, sorry, what page are you on?
I've got H, H48 and then it goes to the house, G, H01, which is held.
It will be near the back because I'm near the bottom of the list.
There we go, 117.
Page 117.
7.
Yeah, I mean lifeline has been difficult business for the last
few years. Obviously it's a service that the Council wants
to provide, service for vulnerable people. Since COVID
client numbers have been dropping off, so unfortunately
people pass away, people go into care, people no longer need
those services. And I think the cost of living crisis is also
had an effect on this, because it's in steady decline.
in numbers where we were sitting around probably five, six years ago, probably 4 ,700 clients,
something like that, and then dropping steadily over the last five years to probably about
4 ,000 clients, maybe a little bit dip below that.
It has increased and it has stabilized recently.
And the numbers, there's always interest in the service and we build on average probably
50 to 60 new clients per month.
Probably on average historically over the last five years we're sort of losing 80 to
90 a month that has showed a decline.
It has stabilized recently, so we are hoping
that is gonna build up.
We have to manage our costs very carefully as well
because we're in a competitive market.
So whereas our fees and charges across the board every year
go up by CPI or whatever the agreed percentage is,
with our lifeline business, we have to look at
what all of our competitors are doing.
We have built some business this year.
We're doing a couple of out of hours contracts now
for other councils, and we are always looking
opportunities. But yeah, I'm hoping it's stabilised and I'm hoping we can start turning that round
into a positive and start going in the right direction. But we'll have to see because there's
a lot of things that affect the business.
Okay. Thank you for that. Perhaps a budget line to monitor through the quarters of next
financial year then.
ED02, Princess Parade Planning Project, I don't know, I'll say a little bit about that
and I think it was for 150 ,000 budget to do that.
I should have written the page numbers on my...
Page again, 131, 119 ,000.
So what, is that just, I guess what sort of project that is?
Is that just the continuing maintenance of the site or is there anything more to it than
that?
I think there's a few bits without being close to detail on that one or that particular
number.
But what I'm assuming that is, is money put away for any further jobs that need doing
on the site.
There's still some clearance work to be done, here is fencing and stuff, which we've
We've been waiting to get done and there's actually an order being raised today, I think,
to have the Harris fencing cleared after the hoarding came down last year
and a few other bits of tidy up on the site.
There is a maintenance budget to repair fencing if it's broken
and I think there's potentially some money in there.
I think it's probably in that line for carrying on the public engagement.
Okay, thanks a lot.
And then my last one is GX81,
which I think is right at the end, right at the back somewhere.
Could be the very last one.
Page 139, Connect 38.
So it's showing an increase on income from last year, forecasted, which is great, but
obviously that's still, am I right in thinking it's still not fully tenanted?
Is that forecast based on the current level of occupation or based upon the building being fully tenanted?
Firstly, the good news is the building will be fully tenanted.
The estates team have done a fabulous job of getting it fully tenanted in a very difficult market.
They've just agreed a lease for I think £7 ,500 square feet, which I think roughly equates with business rates etc etc that you're no longer liable to for over £200 ,000 a year.
So a really really good piece of work.
As with all of these things we do a fit out to a degree, CAT A fit out it's called.
they will come in and do their cap be fit out,
which is getting it ready for occupation,
putting on a desk in buildings and partitions
and things like that.
To reflect that, there is a rent -free period,
so there will not be the full amount of rent
in here for that year.
There'll be, the lease has just been signed,
I'm not sure of the exact date.
So some of this will reflect the increased rental
the year after will have the full effect of that.
Okay, that's good news.
And then my last point, something which Tim would know, I often say, just to do with our
allocation of sort of community grants and that sort of thing.
There's two budget headings, ED41 and FH18, which pretty much, they almost sound the same.
One is labelled community grants and one is labelled general grants.
But, yeah, I don't know.
Is there any thought to sort of merging those sorts of things, those two categories, just
so it makes it a bit easier to track where we're giving our money out, and so it's a
bit more accountable.
And I've said this in previous years, but it is much more simplified than it used to
be.
There used to be about five or six budget headings with different pots of money that
to go out in various different places, so to get it down to this, but I didn't know
any consideration to that.
We have asked for the grants team to put together an appendix for the full council meeting,
which will show where our grants are being paid to. Unfortunately it wasn't ready for
your paper, but we did take that on board and it will be coming forward.
Okay, that's excellent, thank you.
Don't know if members have had anything else they thought of in that bit of time.
Okay then, so obviously this again goes to cabinet and goes to full council in a few
weeks for us to vote on but if we're happy to receive and note the report.
Okay.
Item 9.
Okay, so this is the update to the General Fund Capital Program, again for the next financial
year, 25 -26.
As I explained earlier at the moment, we are effectively basically on the premises of this
business as usual. We are going to be having to do a fundamental review of what we're spending
on, what projects we can complete, what is not going to enter into, but at the moment
we are presenting this as our best estimate at the time, continuing business as usual.
But as you can imagine, probably next year this will look very different.
Very much shorter.
Very much shorter.
Thank you.
Members?
Anything on this?
No?
No?
No, I don't know.
We had a discussion about the financial system already and the financial implications of
that which are listed in here as well.
So there's no need to go over them again really.
I think that as you say there's projects in here that may or may not need the funding
but we'll wait for the guidance.
Are we happy to receive a report?
Item 10.
Investment strategy for 25 -26.
The next set of papers as you know are our normal strategies that we update and revise
to base to reflect current economic climates and to let you know effectively any changes
etc.
They are the standard papers that we present to you every year.
Members, do you have anything we want to say or raise on this?
Tim, did you want to add something?
Yeah, just to draw people's attention to paragraph 7 or section 7 of the appendix,
that's a question that we get asked quite a lot in terms of our investment strategies
about environmental, social and governance considerations and it does set out within
there what we are doing and what we can do within that.
There are limitations to that because there is effectively a hierarchy of investment strategy.
The first one is don't lose the money and it works down a bit and we're not allowed
to prioritize green investment above don't lose the money.
So, you start there, you've got some legal ones first, but then what you can do is take
into account that as long as you've done your first, you can then look at the environmental
and social considerations there.
And we try to do so.
You can't include, there is no investment strategy, you wouldn't leave your house in
the morning if you considered the investment strategy of every pound that you were carrying
and whether you were about to suspend it in an ethical and a social and environmental
way.
Life's too short to be able to make that evaluation for everything.
But it does set the framework.
It does mean that when those investment decisions are being made, it is part of the consideration
process given the balance between two safe investments who will go for the better one.
But just to make sure that it is flagged, it is actually there, it is considered, and
we do so as much as we're allowed to legally do within the remaining framework that we
have to work with.
Thank you for that.
Members?
Just had one little thing on the table in table 4 under section 5 commercial investments,
again, Connect 38, just trying to sort of get an idea of how that gets valued.
Is it purely just on the spec of the building?
Is there any value attributed to the level of tenancy or the works that were put into
it in terms of improving it.
I know if you improve your house, you can get a better value on it, for example.
Is there any sort of consideration in that in terms of the slight increase in value that
we see in the table?
Perhaps something to come back on?
We'll come back to you on that if that's all right.
But they are valued at market value, I was just trying to sustain whether we have independent
annual valuations on our investment properties?
Yes, we've talked about it quite a bit.
Why not?
So, thank you, Chair.
So there are annual valuations
that are done as part of the year into account,
so they'll be valued...
Well, the portfolio properties will be revalued.
The way that we do it,
and I don't want to be able to correct if I'm wrong slightly on this,
but there are a certain number of properties
that our valuers will choose and revalue every so often.
and there's a period whereby which all properties
need to be revalued.
And so there's some detail behind that.
It's not necessarily every single property
every single year, but there is a revaluation period
after which time we do have to revalue properties.
Correct me if I'm wrong on any of that.
It's very different.
I think.
It's more than three years.
I think so, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I can't remember which is odd but when did we purchase Connect 38?
Didn't know that, we know the year.
2019, 20 possibly.
What was it?
I don't think it was that early.
Thank you for that.
Okay, if there's nothing else for that report, are you happy to receive a note, the report?
All in favour?
Okay, thank you.
So that was item 10.
Item 11, so the capital strategy for 25 -26, including minimum revenue provision statement.
Anyone want to just…
It's a standard updated report to you.
It's one that we have to present to full council every year for adoption.
There are no fundamental changes in the policy statement.
So there we are, it's largely being the same as what was there last year.
Members, anything for this?
Okay.
Just thinking perhaps, I mean, I don't know if there are, but if there are any sort of
changes from year to year other than dates and things,
it would be possible to have a track changes document
where the change is possibly highlighted in red
just so members could pick up if there are any changes.
I mean, if it's exactly the same document, then it's fine.
But if they were...
Yeah, I know we do it for some other standard reports
which are largely the same year on year.
It just helps to see what is changed, if anything.
Okay, happy to receive a note.
And then the last item of the evening, the treasury management strategy for 25 -26.
Thanks.
We had some treasury management at the last meeting in terms of in -year reporting so it's
largely similar to that.
I don't know if there's any significant things that we're expecting in -year that we're not
expecting currently within this financial year that's worth mentioning.
OK.
Members, anything in this that you all want to mention or raise?
I didn't write anything for this one.
OK.
Happy to receive a note.
And that brings us to the end of our agenda.
Thank you very much for your time this evening.