Issue - meetings

Matter for Decision

To approve the 2017/18 outturn position (actual income and expenditure) for the Planning Policy and Transport Portfolio compared to the final budget for the year.

 

Decision of Executive Councillor for Planning Policy and Transport

 

Resolved: To approve the 2017/18 Revenue and Capital Outturn, Carry Forwards and Significant Variances (actual income and expenditure) for the Planning Policy and Transport Portfolio compared to the final budget for the year.

 

Resolved: To agree to request that the Executive Councillor for Finance and Resources, at the Strategy and Resources Scrutiny Committee on 2 July 2018, approved the following:

·        Carry forward requests totalling £10,250 revenue funding from 2017/18 to 2018/19, as detailed in Appendix C of the Officer’s Report.

·        Carry forward requests of £1,410k capital resources from 2017/18 to 2018/19 to fund rephased net capital spending, as detailed in Appendix D of the Officer’s report.

 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Principal Accountant (Services), Business Transformation.

 

The report presented a summary of actual income and expenditure compared to the final budget for 2017/1/8 (outturn position); and gave an overview of the revenue and capital budget variances with explanations and outlined specific requests to carry forward funding available from budget underspends into 2018/19.

 

The Principal Accountant and the Project Engineer (Team Leader) said the following in response to Members’ questions:

 

     i.        Would enquire with the relevant officer(s) if a report on the taxi cards could be presented at the next Planning and Transport meeting; highlighting the reasons for the continued underspend and issues with the cards.

    ii.        Agreed that all future budget reports would split the variance of income and expenditure for car parks and shop mobility to include a visibility of cost, such as a breakdown of staffing costs. This would apply to that one item only.  

   iii.        The City Council continues to contribute £50,000 annually to the jointly funded cycle ways scheme. This had historically been matched funded by Cambridgeshire County Council and shown as a credit on the account. This direct contribution had stopped but the County did invest through other budgets stream that they held.

  iv.        The rephasing of funding for the green scheme commitments had been a consequence of not requiring the full level of funding that had originally been budgeted for.

   v.        Improvement to the Green Dragon footbridge which had been estimated to cost £150,000 approximately, but only £20,000 had been spent. Further engagement with the County Council at delivery stage identified the bridge had a limited life expectancy and the County Council would seek to replace the bridge with a wider structure. Work had therefore been deferred.

  vi.        Staffing issues had been a factor in the completion under the cycle ways projects. These were now being addressed and a report to the Environment Scrutiny Committee in October 2017 had outlined future plans for a cycle ways programme in and around the city. A further decision had been agreed to cover the backlog of proposed spending although not all projects would be completed in 2018:

·              Up to £150,000 towards the improvements of the Maids Causeway crossing from Midsummer Common and the Four Lamps Roundabout. It was anticipated that significant funding would be spent in 2017/18 as the County Council were unable to take forward their capital funding to 2019/20.

·              £150,000 to improve the cycle route along Snakey Path from Brookside to Cherry Hinton (work was currently being undertaken but consent was required from a private landowner to carry the project forward).

·              £10,000 for Davy Road cycle path (the project was tied to the roll out of the new resident parking scheme).

·              £20,000 for a combination of the various minor scheme improvements.

·              £20,000 for various cycle parking improvements.

 vii.        The majority of spending on cycling improvements was on highways which the County Council had stewardship over but work was also undertaken on City Council maintained land and open spaces.

viii.        Expressed concern at taking on further additional maintenance and liability for adopting open spaces on future growth sites. Many of the transport connections on these sites would primarily be adopted by the County Council, alongside the rest of the road network.

  ix.        Agreed to bring a report to a future meeting which would provide detailed information on all cycle works project being undertaken.

   x.        The Green Deal had been repaid in 2017 and had been wrongly carried forward.

  xi.        The reason for under spend on the public transport subsidy was the charge from the County Council had been less than estimated. The subsidy covered the night time and evening services for Citi 1, 2 and 114.

 xii.        Believed the budget had included twenty one electric vehicle charging points throughout the city.

xiii.        Delivery of capital projects had always been a challenge; suggested that forecasting had been over optimistic with completion date and the cost of budget shown in one financial year which could be spread over a two year period rather than carried forward.

 

The Executive Councillor said the following: 

i.             An underspend on taxi cards had been a regular occurrence for three years, if not longer. If the underspend continued this would be investigated and how improvements could be made to increase demand.

ii.             Agreed that a report on taxi cards should be brought to a future committee meeting so that the matter could be looked at in greater detail.

iii.             At the last meeting of the Cycle Steering Group, several schemes had been considered to determine what projects should remain and this group would continue to scrutinise cycle projects.

iv.             The Public Transport Subsidy had not been looked for many years. The commitment to Citi routes 1, 2 & 114 had been made at least ten years ago which still meet a substantial need in parts of the city. Without the subsidy there would be less evening routes for the public to use.

v.             Electric vehicle charging points should be rolled out in this financial year, the project had revolved around match funding from Central Government.

 

The Committee unanimously endorsed the recommendation as set

out in the Officer’s report.

 

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendations.