Agenda item

Report of the Chamberlain

The Committee considered a Report of the City Surveyor concerning the Central Risk budgets and their relationship to contingencies.

The Chairman requested that a copy of the Report be circulated to all Chairmen and Chief Officers of the Grand Committees.

Additionally, the Chairman reminded officers that with the basic exception of carry forwards, in-year changes should be avoided, he reiterated that the core role of the Finance Committee is to monitor the original budget, and requests for additional funding should be transparent and scrutinised.

A Member raised concerns that, inevitably, situations would arise where emergency funding would urgently be needed to mitigate problems. It was difficult to predict with much accuracy what level of resources would be required when these events struck, citing the frequent cases of fly tipping in Epping Forest, the quantity of which fluctuated from month-to-month. The Chairman reassured the Member that the Corporation would retain a common-sense approach to urgent calls on contingencies, and stressed the variances, where justified, would not be viewed unsympathetically.

RESOLVED – that the Committee approved the following:

·         Agree that departments should in the first instance seek to re-prioritise local risk

budgets when unexpected pressures arise. And that any calls on the Finance

Committee contingency should only be allocated towards the end of the

financial year or in exceptional circumstances (see paragraph 3).

·         Note the relationship between central risk and contingency arrangements, in

particular that central risk budgets are for known volatile spend or income items;

contingencies are for unforeseen items of spend.