Decision details

It was proposed by Councillor Everitt and seconded by Councillor Hart:

“THAT Members approve the sources of funding identified in paragraph 3.1 of the main report, as recommended by Cabinet and amended in the addendum of report, to fund the outstanding debt, as follows:

a)  A sum of £659k has been identified in respect of prior year adjustments to housing benefit subsidy. This is a highly volatile budget due to the impact on the subsidy of increases in caseloads and errors in benefit calculations and so normally any underspend would be put into the Customer Services Reserve to mitigate any future overspends. However, the current balance in this reserve is considered appropriate for this purpose and therefore this budget underspend can be utilised to offset the Transeuropa debt position;

b)  Unallocated unringfenced grants of £92k have been identified;

c)  A balance of £43k remains on the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant reserve which is unallocated;

d)  A sum of £502k will be drawn down from the New Homes Bonus;

e)  Savings in the cremator project of £196k will be utilised;

f)  Carry forward budgets of £257k from prior years have not been utilised and will therefore be taken to offset this debt;

g)  A sum of £200k will be taken from the Priority Improvement Reserve which will still leave a balance of £405k to support invest to save and one-off initiatives;

h)  A sum of £196k will be taken from the VAT Reserve;

i)  The bad debt provision has been reviewed and a sum of £200k can be taken to contribute towards this debt

SUBJECT to the new Homes Bonus drawn down amended to £502K and the Customer Services Reserve draw down amended to £659K.’ “

During debate, it was stated that Scrutiny should examine all circumstances relating to the Transeuropa debt, including the robustness of recording and decision-making processes and whether a local authority was an appropriate body to operate a commercial business like the Port.  A comment was made, on the other hand, that an investigation should be carried out fully independent of the Council.

In response to a query from Councillor Worrow, the Chief Executive gave an assurance that should a similar situation arise in future, it would be suggested to the Leader that information be released to the Governance & Audit Committee in confidence.

Upon being put to the vote, the motion was declared CARRIED.