The Performance Plan 2006

General Fund. This covers all revenue spending apart from spending on the provision of Council housing.  Table 7 provides a summary for 2006/07: -

Table 7 - General Fund budget 2006/07 by portfolio

Portfolio	Budget (£m)	%
Environmental Health and Waste Management	5.2	31 %
Planning and Economic Development	4.3	25 %
Resources and Staffing (including collection of Council Tax, Benefits and financial management)	2.1	12 %
Housing (General Fund)	1.7	10 %
Information and Customer Services	1.6	10 %
Community Development	1.2	7 %
Conservation, Sustainability and Community Planning	0.8	5 %
Total 2006/07 General Fund Budget	16.9

The relative amount spent on services takes into account: -

• The extent to which services are required to be provided by law – for example refuse collection and the determination of planning applications.
• The costs of providing an acceptable service level. Some services are more expensive to provide than others – in terms of employee costs, transport costs etc.
• The extent to which services promote the Council’s priorities.
• Consultation carried out with the public. In September 2004 consultation was carried out through the South Cambs Magazine on those services, which the public considered more and less important. This information has been taken into account in identifying areas for savings.

Capital Spending.

This is money spent on maintaining or acquiring new assets such as housing, community facilities and equipment. For 2006/07 the planned programme is set out in Table 8: -

Table 8 - Planned Capital Programme for 2006/07

Area of spend	Budget (£m)	%
Housing	11.42	89 %
Information Technology	0.60	5 %
Community Services grants	0.58	5 %
Sustainability Transport Fund	0.10	1 %
Street sweeping and drainage equipment	0.09	1 %
Conservation grants	0.08	1 %
2006/07 Capital Programme Budget	12.87

The major aspect of the Capital Programme is on housing; mainly on the improvement and maintenance of the Council’s own stock. This supports the Council’s priorities of affordable housing and customer service. The spending on Information Technology is to support the Council’s transition to electronic service delivery and meet the Council’s priority of improving customer service.

The Community Services grants are made available to parish councils and other partners to provide sports, arts and community facilities and are highly valued.

The Capital Programme is financed largely from capital receipts (£8.6m) such as the sale of Council houses and from grants and contributions (£4m). The Council retains debt free status and hence does not borrow to meet the cost of its capital programme.

However, capital receipts are now decreasing largely as a result of the decision by the Government to require 75% of our housing receipts to be paid into a national pool. As a result the Council’s capital programme will be much reduced from 2009/10 onwards.

Housing Revenue Account (HRA).  

This is the Council’s spending on the provision and management of its housing stock. The account is a balanced ring-fenced account, with the costs of the housing stock being met from rents and other income. The budget for 2006/07 shows costs of £19.3m (excluding capital charge adjustments). Despite substantial savings in operating costs, the budget will run at a deficit of £0.4 in 2006/07 largely because of an increase in the negative subsidy paid to the national pool from £8.7m to £9.5m. This deficit can be met from reserves for 2006/07, but this cannot be repeated for 2007/08 because reserves will have been reduced to the £1m minimum and further operational savings may be required.

The HRA and GF are interlinked in that many corporate services and systems support both and savings in one area affect the other.