The Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change presented a report, to provide members with an update on the capital outturn position for the financial year 2022-2023 and to note the actual Prudential and Other indicators for 2022/23.

She advised that on 23 February 2023, Council approved a capital budget of £69.9m for 2022/23 as part of the capital programme covering the period 2022/23 to 2031/32. This programme has been revised and approved by Council during the year and the programme approved in March 2023 totalled £58.4m.

The programme was to be met by £21.8m of BCBC resources, including the use of capital receipts, contributions from earmarked reserves and borrowing. The balance of £36.5m was to be funded from external sources.

The details of the individual schemes showing the budget available last year compared to the actual spend, was detailed at Appendix A to the report. Since the last report was considered by members in March 2023, there had been some minor amendments made to the programme and these were detailed in paragraph 3.1.2 of the report. The revised budget for 2022/23 explained the Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change was, therefore, £58.76m.

The total capital spend in the last financial year was £29.2m and after slippage into 2023/24 of £27.9m and some adjustments to grant funded schemes, this represented an underspend of £795,000.

She explained that slippage has occurred for a number of reasons including delays in starting projects to enable more detailed survey works to be completed, supply chain issues and discussions with external funders. These issues were reported to members during the year. Details of the main areas of slippage were provided for Council at paragraph 3.1.4 of the report.

The majority of the underspend will be returned to the Council’s capital funding provision to contribute to future capital schemes, added the Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change.

The Chief Officer – Finance, Performance and Change confirmed that the Capital Strategy gives an overview of how capital expenditure, capital financing and treasury management activity contributes to the provision of services, along with an overview of how associated risk is managed and the implications for future sustainability. To ensure that we monitor this, a number of prudential indicators were included in the Strategy which was approved by Council. In line with the requirements of the Prudential Code for Capital Financing, the Council is required to establish procedures to monitor both performance against all forward-looking indicators and the requirements specified.

She concluded by stating that Appendix B of the report, detailed the actual indicators for 2022/2023 based on the capital programme outturn. These confirmed that the council is operating in line with the approved indicators.

A Member referred to page 80 of the report and the £1.115m from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and asked the Executive if it was fact that BCBC were the only local authority part of the Cardiff Capital Region City Deal, not to use this fund in 2022/23.

The Chief Executive advised that Cabinet had recently considered revisiting the manner by which it protects its finances including the ways in which it commits to projects etc, in future. Presently, our budget principles were predicated on not becoming involved in projects and funding opportunities etc, until any finance for these was fully committed. BCBC had always been cautious and prudent when it came to protecting its finances, he added. Any change to the above, would require firstly adopting an alternative approach to the Council’s financial rules and regulations presently adopted.

RESOLVED:                            That Council noted the Capital Outturn 2022/23 (Appendix A to the report) and the actual Prudential Indicators and other Indicators for 2022/23 (at Appendix B).