Contact: : Jon Pittam, (01962) 847400; [email protected]

Rea Mattocks, (01962) 847200; [email protected]

Erica Meadus, (01962) 846195; [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report proposes the capital programme for 2008/09 to 2010/11 (shown as Appendix 1).

1.2 Decisions on the capital programme will support the County Council's corporate priorities, as indicated in the detailed capital programme attached at Appendix 1.

2 Locally resourced capital programme

2.1 The following guideline limits were confirmed by Cabinet at its meeting on 17 December 2007 for the locally resourced programme for Adult Services. The guidelines have been set for a three-year programme for 2008/09 to 2010/11, instead of the four-year programme in recent years, to match the period covered by the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review and three-year revenue grant settlement. In July 2006 Cabinet approved significant increases to the Adult Services Capital programme to support major IT and care home investment. This element of the programme will complete in 2009/10. The programme then reverts to its normal allocation of £688,000.

		£000
	2008/09	2,285
	2009/10	1,033
	2010/11	688

2.2 The guidelines include an addition of 2.5% for inflation, in line with the non-pay inflation assumption for the revenue budget.

2.3 Executive members may vary the guidelines between years provided their total three-year guideline is not exceeded and bunching of payments in any one year or front-loading is avoided.

2.4 Executive members may propose supplementing their capital guidelines under the `prudential framework' agreed by Cabinet at its meeting on 24 November 2003, thereby integrating more closely decisions on revenue and capital spending in support of corporate priorities. The additions may include:

· virement from the executive member's revenue budget

· temporary unsupported borrowing, to provide bridging finance in advance of capital receipts or other contributions, with the cost of servicing the unsupported borrowing in the interim being met from the executive member's revenue budget or existing capital resources in the years in which cost is incurred.

3 Proposed capital programme 2008/09 to 2010/11 - locally resourced schemes

3.1 The Adult Services capital programme for locally resourced schemes is principally in accordance with, and continues to prioritise, those elements reported to Cabinet in February 2007 including the following:

· A minimum future programme to cover statutory requirements for fire and health and safety on Adult Services' buildings,

· Various IT systems and projects needed to meet government requirements and targets and

· Other smaller amounts in relation to inescapable demand factors (such as the community equipment stock) or extra care housing (which is financially advantageous in the longer term).

3.2 The detailed programme is shown in Appendix 1 and expenditure for 2008/09 is summarised in the table below:

The above includes substantial corporate support of £1.6m for IT and care home investment.

4 Proposed capital programme 2008/09 to 2010/11 - schemes supported by Government allocations

4.1 Cabinet agreed on 17 December 2007 to continue the restrictions on the use of Government supported borrowing allocations. This decision was taken because the mechanism within the revenue grant system which previously provided funding for the marginal cost of additional supported borrowing has not been restored by the Government. Cabinet set the following provisional limits, nil for Adult Services, for the use of supported borrowing to reflect the announcements by the Government of its allocations for 2008/09 onwards.

		£000
	2008/09	-
	2009/10	-
	2010/11	-

4.2 Schemes funded by capital grants from the Government may be added to the above limits. The anticipated capital grants for each of the three years of the programme are summarised below.

		£000
	2008/09	291
	2009/10	291
	2010/11	290

4.3 The capital grant of £291,000 relates to ongoing Government support for mental health capital expenditure in relation to responsibilities under the mental health national service framework. This expenditure is linked to the Corporate Strategy of maximising well being.

4.4 In addition, capital grant of £731,000 has been received for the Single Capital Pot designed for general capital use. This has previously been made available as supported borrowing. As such, it already underlies the capital programme's allocations to Adult Services and to P&R programmes - such as capital repairs - which support Adult Services. This conversion to grant is an advantage, but is more than offset for the Council as a whole by the conversion of capital grants to supported borrowing in education and transport. Consequently this technical change does not lead to any increase in Adult Services' capital spending power.

5 Capital programme summary

5.1 On the basis of the position outlined above, the total value of the capital programmes submitted for consideration for the three years to 2010/11 are:

6 Revenue Implications

6.1 The revenue implications of the proposed capital programme are as follows:

6.2 The total revenue implications for the three years of the starts programme, including capital charges, represent a real term increase of 0.2% over the 2007/08 original budget of this service.

7 Other factors

7.1 In order to invest in social care building stock, further agreement needs to be sought on capital funding required. The revenue report recommends the carry forward into capital in 2008/09 of an element of winter pressures money at the end of the year, currently £2m, in order to support this investment (see Revenue Budget 2008/09, 2009/10 and 2010/11,section 3).

8 Impact assessment

8.1 The proposals in this report are derived from the departmental service plans and are in accordance with the budget strategy and the County Council's financial management policy. An impact assessment of the departmental service plans and the financial management policy has been carried out and the proposals in this report are not considered to be discriminatory.

9 Recommendation

9.1 The following decisions are sought:

1 That the capital programme for 2008/09 to 2010/11 as set out in Appendix 1 be approved for submission to the Cabinet.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB: the list excludes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None.