Issue - meetings

Meeting: 18/01/2019 - Cabinet (Item 101)

101 Cabinet Members' Items - Joint Report of the Housing Portfolio Holder and the Finance and Corporate Resources Portfolio Holder - A.3 - Housing Revenue Account Budget Proposals 2019/2020 pdf icon PDF 102 KB

To set out and seek Cabinet’s approval of:

 

·          A Housing Revenue Account (HRA) budget for 2019/20, including the movement in HRA balances;

·         The level of fees and charges for 2019/20; and

·         The HRA Capital Programme.

Additional documents:

Decision:

RESOLVED that Cabinet:-

 

(a)   Notes the 1% reduction in actual rents / formula rents in 2019/20 in line with the Government’s imposed restrictions on rent setting policy; 

 

(b)   approves the 2019/20 Scale of Charges shown in Appendix B; and

 

(c)   subject to (a) and (b) above, approves the Housing Revenue Account Budget for 2019/20 as set out in Appendix A, along with the HRA Capital Programme and the movement in HRA Balances / Reserves as set out in Appendix C and Appendix D respectively.

Minutes:

There was submitted a joint report by the Portfolio Holder for Housing and the Portfolio Holder for Finance and Corporate Resources, which sought Cabinet’s approval of:

 

·        a Housing Revenue Account (HRA) budget for 2019/20, including the movement in HRA balances;

·        the level of fees and charges for 2019/20; and

·        the HRA Capital Programme.

 

Cabinet was informed that pending the development of the Council’s Housing Strategy, only limited changes to the HRA budget were proposed in 2019/20. As reported in previous years, Local Authorities were required to reduce rents by 1% each year for 4 years, with 2019/20 being the fourth and final year of this approach.

 

It was reported that the 2018/19 reduction in rents had led to a significant reduction in the revenue contribution to the Capital Programme to support new build and acquisition initiatives with the budget reducing from £0.780m to £0.480m. The 2019/20 reduction in rents had led to this contribution being removed completely to enable a balanced HRA budget to be set for the year.

 

Cabinet was informed that HRA debt continued to reduce year-on-year as the principal debt was repaid with a total debt position at the end of 2019/20 forecast to be £40.105m.

 

Cabinet was further informed that the Government had committed to removing the HRA debt cap which was currently £60.285m for this Council and any future borrowing decisions would therefore need to take account of existing prudential borrowing principles within a revised HRA Business Plan rather than be limited to this arbitrary cap.

 

It was reported that the HRA general balance was forecast to total £4.810m at the end of 2019/20, which retained a strong financial position against which the Housing Strategy and associated HRA 30 year Business Plan could be considered.

 

Members were aware that a Housing Strategy was currently being developed. This would in turn inform the 30 year HRA Business Plan. The 2019/20 budget proposed therefore reflected only limited changes during the interim period, but it could be reviewed in-year to reflect any changes required once a revised business plan was agreed.

 

Having considered the information in the report:

 

It was moved by Councillor Honeywood, seconded by Councillor G V Guglielmi and:-

 

RESOLVED that Cabinet:-

 

(a)   Notes the 1% reduction in actual rents / formula rents in 2019/20 in line with the Government’s imposed restrictions on rent setting policy; 

 

(b)   approves the 2019/20 Scale of Charges shown in Appendix B; and

 

(c)   subject to (a) and (b) above, approves the Housing Revenue Account Budget for 2019/20 as set out in Appendix A, along with the HRA Capital Programme and the movement in HRA Balances / Reserves as set out in Appendix C and Appendix D respectively.