Agenda item
Minutes:
The Director of Corporate Services advised that this report set out the current budget position in respect of the 2024/25 revenue and capital budgets. The year?to?date position was broadly balanced with no significant variances forecast for the year at the time of reporting.
Revenue Budget
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service’s 2024/5 revenue budget was set at £74.149m. The budget profiled to the end of May 2024 was £16.144m and expenditure for the same period was £15.999m, resulting in a year-to-date underspend of £0.145m.
The overall underspend position was further broken down between pay and non-pay budgets; there was an underspend of £0.211 on pay and a £0.066m overspend on non-pay activities.
While two months was a short period to determine any underlying trends it did serve as a guide for further work to identify potential changes that might impact the outturn position for the year. The main variance relates to pay as set out in the table below. The year-to-date positions within all departmental budgets were set out in Appendix 1.
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Area £’m |
Overspend/ (Under spend) to 31 May 23 |
Reason |
|
Overall Pay |
(0.210) |
The Pay budget was showing small underspends across a number of areas, but particularly on Grey book staff. This was mainly due to underspending on service delivery (0.105), primarily on the On Call Fire Fighters budget.
This spend was driven by activity and recruit numbers. Recruits are expected to rise in year, with On Call recruitment vacancies advertised during June.
Other pay underspending was observed on the Protection and Prevention budget (0.075), which was undergoing a staffing reorganisation, with recruitments planned. Other small staffing vacancies were reported across the organisation and were not expected to be long term. |
Future Pressures
The outcome of the 2024/25 Grey book pay award negotiations resulted in a 4% increase to all basic pay and CPD payments with effect from 1 July 2024. A 3% increase was budgeted. The anticipated pressure for the year was c. £0.300m. Green book pay award negotiations were ongoing and were budgeted at 3%.
Additionally, the employer’s contribution rate to the 2015 Firefighters’ pension scheme as determined by the scheme actuary was increased from 28.8% to 37.6%. Additional grant funding was assumed to offset this pressure.
Capital Budget
The original Capital Programme for 2024/25 is £10.196m. Slippage from 2023/24 of £1.773m was added to the original budget to give a revised budget of £11.969m. To date £0.206m was spent, predominantly on wide area network replacements as set out in Appendix 2. This appendix set out the revised capital programme and committed expenditure position against this.
A broad overview of the programme is set out below: -
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Area |
Budgeted Items |
|
Operational Vehicles Budget £2.943m |
The budget included initial costs of two water towers, two climate change vehicles and an aerial appliance from previous programmes. It also included three pumping appliances for the 2024/25 programme.
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Other vehicles Budget £0.948m |
This budget allowed for the replacement of various operational support vehicles including several cars, vans and a beavertail lorry.
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Operational Equipment Budget £1.846m
|
This budget allowed for operational equipment purchases including CCTV cameras for appliances and cutting and extrication equipment. |
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Building Modifications Budget £3.639m
|
This budget included the continued programme of Drill Tower Replacements and budget for the initial works to support the upgrade to Preston station.
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IT systems Budget £2.593m |
This budget included various projects including upgraded Firewalls, network upgrades and replacement of pooled PPE and stock management systems.
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Resolved: That the Committee noted and endorsed the year?to?date position in respect of the 2024/25 revenue and capital budgets.
Supporting documents:
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