Resources Committee
Wednesday, 26 March 2025, at 10.00 amin the Main Conference Room, Service Headquarters, Fulwood.
Minutes
Present: |
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Councillors
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G Baker
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F De Molfetta
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Z Khan MBE
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D O'Toole
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M Pattison (Vice-Chair)
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S Serridge (Chair)
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D Smith
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R Woollam
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B Yates
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Officers |
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S Brown, Director of Corporate Services (LFRS) E Sandiford, Director of People and Development (LFRS) B Warren, Director of People and Development (LFRS) J Meadows, Head of Finance (LFRS) |
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38/24 |
Apologies for Absence
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Apologies were received from County Councillor T Hurn.
Vice-Chair County Councillor M Pattison chaired the meeting as the Chair had been delayed.
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39/24 |
Disclosure of Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests
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None received.
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40/24 |
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
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Councillor G Baker asked if the Revenue Budget section within the Financial Monitoring report could include an action column to summarise the actions taken. The Director of Corporate Services (DoCS) confirmed that this could be implemented for some points within the report and would be reviewed for future reports.
Councillor G Baker asked about the accuracy of the forecast for interest rates from Arlingclose. The DoCS confirmed that Arlingclose were professional advisors used by a number of organisations and their forecasts were generally reliable, although a number of factors could impact forecasts such as election results.
Resolved: That the Minutes of the last meeting held on 27 November 2024 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.
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41/24 |
Financial Monitoring
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The Director of Corporate Services (DoCS) advised that this report set out the current budget position in respect of the 2024/25 revenue and capital budgets.
Revenue Budget In February 2024 the Combined Fire Authority (CFA) agreed the Service’s 2024/25 revenue budget at £75.155m. This Financial Monitoring report was for the ten-month period to the end of January 2025. The forecast outturn was £74.066m, which was an underspend of (£1.089m). Of the forecast underspend, (£0.962m) related to non-pay costs, and (£0.127m) to pay costs.
The year-to-date and forecast positions within all departmental budgets were set out in Appendix 1 of the report, with the major variances of note shown separately in the table below.
Future Pressures Emerging pressures to report to the Resources Committee included inflation forecasts. As reported to the CFA in February, government grants were increased by the September rate of inflation (1.7%). The latest rate of inflation was now 3% which was likely to put pressure on budgets in 2025/26.
There were no further new pressures to report since the last meeting, the green book pay award and firefighter employer pension contributions had been included in the 2025/26 budget approved by the CFA in February.
Savings Targets A reduction in the contribution to Capital of £1.5m was agreed in the medium-term Financial Strategy resulting in a revenue contribution in 2024/25 of £2.5m. The budget had been reduced to this effect.
General Fund The year end forecasted general fund position is summarised below:
Capital Budget The original Capital Programme for 2024/25 was £12m including slippage from 2023/24, this was revised to £5m by the CFA in February 2025 when they approved the updated capital strategy. To date £2.793m had been spent predominantly on fleet and operational equipment. A summary of the programme is set out in the table below and in more detail in Appendix 2 of the report.
Potential Financial Risks There were several potential scenarios that had not been reflected in this monitoring report that, if they materialised, may give rise to an increase in revenue and capital expenditure. To provide some information about potential significant financial risks these had been quantified to provide an estimated worst-case scenario, these were set out in Appendix 3 of the report. Taking all these risks overall and adjusted for the remainder of the year, a potential worst-case scenario would impact the Revenue Budget and Capital Budget accordingly:
The potential worst-case scenario could be funded from available budgets but would reduce the general fund balance to below the minimum acceptable level agreed by the CFA.
County Councillor D O’Toole and Councillor D Smith remarked that it was very difficult to forecast the budget due to a number of changing factors including central governments imminent budget announcement.
Resolved: That the Committee;
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42/24 |
Date and Time of Next Meeting
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The next meeting of the Committee would be held on Tuesday 1 July 2025 at 1000 hours in the Main Conference Room at Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Headquarters, Fulwood.
Further meeting dates were noted for 24 September 2025 and 26 November 2025.
County Councillor S Serridge joined the meeting at 10:12.
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43/24 |
Exclusion of Press and Public
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Resolved: That the press and members of the public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following items of business on the grounds that there would be a likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the appropriate paragraph of Part 1 of Schedule 12A to the Local Government Act 1972, indicated under the heading to the item.
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44/24 |
Update from Capital Projects Working Group
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(Paragraph 3)
The DoCS presented the proceedings of the Capital Projects Working Group held on 18 November 2024 and 3 February 2025.
Resolved: That the proceedings of the Capital Projects Working Group be noted.
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45/24 |
High Value Procurement Projects
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(Paragraph 3)
Members considered a report that provided an update on all contracts for one-off purchases valued in excess of £100,000 and high value procurement projects in excess of £100,000 including: new contract awards, progress of ongoing projects and details of new projects.
Resolved: That the Committee noted and endorsed the report.
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46/24 |
Pensions Update (Standing Item)
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(Paragraphs 4 and 5)
Members considered a report that provided an update on the various issues which had arisen in respect of the changes to the pension schemes applying to the uniformed members of the Fire Sector.
Resolved: That the committee noted the current situation.
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