Finance & Resources Select Committee - Thursday 16 July 2026, 2:00pm

Finance & Resources Select Committee
Thursday, 16th July 2026 at 2:00pm

Speaking:

Start of webcast

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Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Jackson Ng

1 Appointment of Vice-Chairman

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2 Apologies for absence / Changes in membership

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Elizabeth Wheaton - Principal Scrutiny Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng

3 Declarations of Interest

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4 Minutes

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5 Public Questions

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6 Overview of the Council's Approach to Managing Property & Capital Assets

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FINAL CPA FRSC Paper 16.07.26

Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Robert Carington
Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Anna Crabtree
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Robert Carington
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Martin Tett
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Cllr Robert Carington
Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets
Cllr Martin Tett
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Christine Adali
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Anja Schaefer
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Anja Schaefer
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Andy Huxley
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Chris Poll
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Robert Carington
Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets
Cllr Jackson Ng

7 Budget Outturn 2025-26

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Cllr Steven Broadbent
Cllr Robert Carington
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Chris Poll
Cllr Steven Broadbent
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Chris Poll
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Chris Poll
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Dev Dhillon
Cllr Robert Carington
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Martin Tett
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Martin Tett
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Martin Tett
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Martin Tett
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Anja Schaefer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Robert Carington
Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources
Cllr Robert Carington
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Christine Adali
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Robert Carington
Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Robert Carington
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Anna Crabtree
Cllr Robert Carington
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Anna Crabtree
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Mohammed Ayub
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Robert Carington
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Chris Poll
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Chris Poll
Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer
Cllr Chris Poll
Cllr Jackson Ng

8 Performance Monitoring Q4

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Cllr Robert Carington
Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Maru Mormina
Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Maru Mormina
Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources
Cllr Maru Mormina
Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources
Cllr Jackson Ng

9 Work Programme

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F & R Work Programme 7-7-26

Cllr Larisa Townsend
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Chris Poll
Cllr Anna Crabtree
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Martin Tett
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng
Cllr Maru Mormina
Cllr Robert Carington
Cllr Jackson Ng

10 Date and time of the next meeting

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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:00:00

Good afternoon, members, cabinet members and officers and those watching this webcast.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:00:11

Welcome to the first full meeting of the Finance and Resource Select Committee in this Council

year.

Firstly, I remind members to switch on their microphones every time they speak so that

their contributions can be properly captured for the webcasts.

Members would have received and read the papers, and whilst answering questions, I would ask

that it would assist the Committee if contributors can identify where possible themselves and

their positions in the Council.

1 Appointment of Vice-Chairman

Agenda item number one, I'd like to move on to the appointment of the Vice Chairman.

I'm pleased to announce that I have appointed Councillor Dev Dhillon as Vice Chairman of

committee for the council year.

Councillor Devdylan is a long -standing committee member and Councillor, while I hold in high

regard.

Thank you, Councillor Devdylan, for taking on this role.

2 Apologies for absence / Changes in membership

We now move on to agenda item number two.

May I ask the clerk to report the apologies for absence, substitutions and any changes

in membership?

Yes, thank you, Chairman.

Elizabeth Wheaton - Principal Scrutiny Officer - 0:01:22

We've had apologies from Councillor Mehta and we have Councillor Schaffer attending

in her place today. Councillors Snave, Wilson and Chilva are no longer members of this committee.

Councillors Townsend, Ning and Mormina are now new members of the committee.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:01:37

Thank you. We now move on to agenda item number three, declarations of interests. Do members

have any interests that they need to declare in connexion with any item on today's agenda

3 Declarations of Interest

that includes any relevant interest concerning council property, land leases, tenancies,

Contractors professional advisors referred to in the papers etc. I'll kick off

I'm a member of Beckonsville Town Council and the member its financing resources select committee

I'm a member of Beckonsville Town Council as well

I'm a member of little Marlowe Parish Council, but I don't believe that has any direct bearing on today's gender

Thank you

I'm a member of Ailsbury Town Council

I'm not sure this has any direct bearing on the agenda today but I'm a member of Buckingham

Town Council.

Thank you.

I'm not a member of any town council or parish council.

Thank you.

Councillor Argyle.

I'm a member of High Rockham Town Committee.

Thank you.

Townsend.

I'm a member of Chipping Wycombe Parish Council.

Thank you.

We now move on to a general item number four, which are the minutes held on the 16th of

4 Minutes

April and the 20th of – the 16th of April.

Any comments on the accuracy from Councillors who were sitting on the committee then?

Agreed.

Yeah?

Are we agreed?

Agreed.

Thank you.

There was also another agenda on the 20th of May, which was held in full council, following

full council.

It's just a little typo in the election of chairman, which I've asked the clerk to amend.

Thank you.

5 Public Questions

Agenda item number five, I have been informed there are no public questions.

Thank you.

6 Overview of the Council's Approach to Managing Property & Capital Assets

Now we move on to Agenda Item Number 6, which is relating to property and assets.

I invite Councillor Carrington to introduce the report.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:04:00

Pleasure to be here.

And for those sort of the old timers of the committee, you'll know this has been requested,

this paper and I am very happy to be bringing it forward.

And it gives an overview of the current approach to managing our property and assets.

So just as a sort of very brief sort of introduction, in managing the assets, like all things, we

need to take a strategic view which balances service delivery with cost efficiency, making

certain in certain areas the assets perform and contribute to our overall objectives.

So, through proactive asset planning and data -driven insights, we prioritise investment and maintenance,

renewal and upgrades, ensuring assets remain fit for purpose and aligned with evolving

community expectations and the key point of delivering for residents and value for money.

So, the property portfolio is currently categorised into two distinct portfolios or sub -portfolios

which shape how they are currently managed.

So, portfolio one is investment property.

These are the income generating assets.

I mean, this would be the agricultural holdings, land holdings, sort of office blocks, warehousing,

and these are the ones which generate stable revenue generation for the council.

Portfolio two is the operational property assets, which are those that accommodate and

support council services and functions.

This includes, I mean, temporary housing needs, schools, waste collection, leisure provision,

children's homes, adult daycare services, libraries, council access points, and civic

functions and buildings.

How the team, so this is all, these two portfolios are overseen by the corporate property and

assets team, which is ably led by Amy Bridgford here to my right.

And they, within it, have three sub -teams.

The first one being asset management, who are the ones who are responsible for income

generation and management across the investment and operational property portfolios.

So their primary approach is operating core professional technical in -house team, but

we do use external advisors when necessary to ensure the most effective management of

the council's estate.

At the moment, we use Cartagena's.

They, as of April 24, are on a four -year contract with an option to extend to three years, and

They, as it goes into detail in the paper, they offer on -call services and off -call services

when there are certain specific things where we require their expertise.

The second subteam is the estate management team.

So, they're responsible for property repair and maintenance, facilities management, and

utility provision.

This subteam is now split into three sub -subteams.

There's probably a more easier way of saying it, but we'll stick with sub -sub teams.

First one is energy management, who, as the name suggests, are responsible for administrating

and managing all energy and utility services required by the Council and our partners to

ensure efficient and reliable operation of buildings and assets.

Then the second is facilities management.

They are the ones who make certain that all of the Council's state and its offices operate

on a day -to -day basis, providing safe, secure, and well -maintained office space, and making

certain the meeting rooms are ready, and the thankless task of making certain all of the

equipment works and film all of our meetings.

So I would argue the most important of the teams, but they're all important, obviously.

And then finally, we have the property services sub -subteam, who are on the primary building

management function.

So they are the ones who make certain the actual buildings

themselves are safe, compliant, and kept to an appropriate

standard, this be energy efficiency and just generic

safety and that we are in safe buildings.

And they do this through a rolling five -year cycle of

condition surveys, which assess key building elements to support

the prioritisation of maintenance, capital investment,

and long -term planning for our internal office buildings.

The final sub -subteam, no, no, sub -team now is property construction.

As the name suggests, they are the ones who are leading on the project management, particularly

for the delivery of our school projects and non -school property construction capital projects

like children's homes.

The only two additional things I quickly want to say are I've used the word current because

Because in alignment with the emerging new five -year corporate plan, which was approved

last night, we are also in the process of producing a strategic asset management plan,

a SAM, which is a high -level public -facing document that basically is used as a framework

to show how we manage our physical assets to achieve our overarching strategic objectives

and priorities and linking it into the MTFP and make certain everything is fully aligned,

continuing the golden thread.

This is currently, those of you who have checked the forward plan, this is down on the forward

plan for discussion at Cabernet's at the end of the month.

And then additionally, just wanted to mention we are also adopting a corporate landlord

model in which ownership, management and maintenance of all council land and property are brought

together under the central CPA, so corporate property and assets function by Amy, with

service areas acting as corporate tenants.

So, sort of avoiding silo working, it brings it all under one sort of landlord team who

can sort of look after everything and make certain that all the resources are spent in

a sensible manner and going into the right place at the right time.

I think that is all I wanted to say.

The introduction, I don't know, I can either hand it over to Amy if there's anything further

you want to add.

Do officers have any comments to add?

Nothing at the moment, thanks, Chair.

Thank you very much, Councillor Carrington, for the introduction.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:10:24

We now move on to members' questions.

Please, very popular, Councillor Carrington.

Let me just make a note.

Can we start with Councillor Mormina?

Thank you.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:11:05

I do have a bunch of questions, actually, but since you talked about the corporate landlord

model, I understand the rationale of bringing everything under one roof, as it were.

But with that come also some risks.

So, for example, loss of autonomy by individual services or slower response times.

So how are these, how will the service areas be protected?

There's also the risk of over -centralization, reduces autonomy, as I said, can create a

sense of disempowerment.

And also there's a risk of the state -led policy where decisions about buildings start driving

decisions about services rather than the other way around.

So how are you mitigating against those risks?

Thank you very much for the question.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:12:10

So I'll just give a very high -level answer, and then Amy no doubt will jump in if she

feels there's something to add.

So the corporate landlord model is one which is used throughout different councils and

within different areas.

I mean, recently you will have seen the council has adopted a tree management strategy, which

does something very similar, sort of regarding trees, which is linked in lots of different

areas and brings it under one area.

So it's not taking away autonomy, the tree strategy, and much more importantly, the corporate

landlord model.

It is very much about making certain that the experts, because in the corporate property

team, particularly in asset management, all people who are at a senior decision -making

level are holder MRIC, which is a membership of the Institutes of Chartered Surveyors,

the Royal, as they are there.

So they are fully qualified chartered surveyors and have the qualifications to be making the

decisions.

I'm not saying that the local teams, but I mean, do not have that, but we are talking

on asset -related matters, and for that you do need someone who has got the property background

So the autonomy is not being taken away.

It is just making certain that the people, the experts, are seeing it from the go rather

than having to go through an old process of where the local team would make a decision

and then it would always have to go to the corporate property team for their advice.

But that would slow down the process.

So this way we are starting it from where we are just making certain that the right

people are seeing it from the beginning, we are just changing how it is done so that the

right people are there at the right time.

I mean, Amy, I don't know if you want to expand on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Carrington.

Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets - 0:14:06

And Chair, just to introduce myself, as you requested, I'm Amy Bridgeford, I'm the Service

Director of Corporate Property and Assets, as Robert has also indicated, and what's on

the paper.

So, Councillor, thank you for the question.

I think with any change programme, there is an element of risk of moving autonomy away

from others.

But just to give some initial reassurance

We've been talking about the corporate landlord model for maybe over a year with inside the council with officers and we've got some change champions

identified and they're actually really relieved by the programme because

Complimenting what current?

Council Carrington has said is that they want to get on with their day job that they're the technical expert in

They don't want to have to worry about the windows or the roof or the painting on the walls

They would like the corporate landlord to look after them to provide them and free them up with extra resource in their team to get

on with their day job

Thank You Amy

Councillor quabtree

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:14:57

So I was interested in the portfolio overview and just

Thinking about a couple of things that are going to help us understand this a bit better

Cllr Anna Crabtree - 0:15:07

I'm very pleased to hear that the strategic asset management plan will be going to cabinet at the end of the month

So we'll all be looking out for that. I'm sure

And the other thing that I thought would allow us to get better understanding of the portfolio would be a fixed asset register

I noticed in some of the papers from audit and governance committee which came to cabinet yesterday

There were some concerns raised by the auditor about the valuation of some of the properties

And how those have been managed in recent years

So I was just wondering if that was something we could expect to have some kind of visibility of in the future. Thank you

Thank you very much for the question

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:15:41

So I'm very glad you mentioned the Strategic Asset Management team.

So as per usual practise, when the strategic asset, I'll just call it the SAMP, is published,

within it there is going to be the total asset numbers, including number of properties, the

amount of farmland owned, number of car parks.

All of that information is going to be within the SAMP.

And, as mentioned, that is going to be discussed at the end of the month and is a five -year

document which aligns with the overall corporate plan.

In regard to your specific question on an actual list of assets, naturally, I think,

as I have explained in the Chamber here and the Chamber behind you, we are mindful not

to undermine the open market process if, particularly some of them may be at some point be required

for disposal to achieve our capital receipts programme.

So to make certain we do not jeopardise that and do not basically put into contact, I mean,

Dave Skene, the Section 151 officer, would be particularly unhappy if we do anything

which jeopardises our priority under section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 in delivering best value.

Because if we were to put that information into the public domain,

that would be a bit of a field day for property speculators to know what we hold

and that would have an influence on the bids we would receive.

So that is why we do not publish that.

Thank you.

Just a follow -up, Councillor Covington. I appreciate the commercial sensitivities of

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:17:28

putting all our assets out there in the public. But when will the draught SAMs be available

for members' scrutiny? Thank you. So, like all normal processes, it would be

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:17:38

one week before the cabinet meeting. So the exact cabinet meeting is the 28th of July,

so one week before. And, of course, I would imagine it would come to this committee for

a full review at some point.

Thank you.

Did you want, Fiona, want to jump in?

Thank you, Chairman.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 0:18:02

I just wanted to come in on Councillor Crabtree's question around the fixed asset register,

as you specifically mentioned it, in relation to our external audit team.

So just for the sort of the understanding of committee, the fixed asset register I think

is referred to as what we hold within the organisation to ensure that our assets are

correctly recorded in our accounts.

So we have had some feedback from our external auditors about how we can improve the information that we hold and that's very much a

Live issue for us as a finance service. So just to provide some assurance on that point

We've taken on board the auditors recommendations on our progressings or development in that area. So just to address that specific point

Thank You councillor Ted

Thank you

So she's from microphone

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:18:44

Just I've got two quick questions one is

Where do we find the key metrics and measures against which this portfolio is measured?

It's not, as far as I can see here, is it within action plans, within the corporate plan, is it within the individual portfolios?

It's just as a committee, we've no real idea of how successful this portfolio is being at achieving its targets, or indeed even what those targets actually are.

So I just have that overarching question first.

My second question, if that's okay, is this is a very important area for the council.

You know, as a council we own an enormous amount of property,

some of it bought by the former county councils, some by the former district councils,

all in the context of that time.

How is that property reviewed and updated?

It might, the answer might be the SAM.

Don't know because the words here don't really tell me enough on what SAM actually is.

But how regularly are we reviewing what we own,

seeing whether we need to maintain it,

and there's a good rationale for keeping a lot of the property that we own,

what do we need to dispose of, and how and when,

and also what would we potentially want to acquire

in line with the new corporate plan,

because there may be certain assets that we actually want to buy.

So again, as a committee, how do we see how that is actually being done?

I'm not asking for the details of what you're going to do, I'm just asking as a process

of how we see how that's being done.

Thank you Councillor Tett.

The Leader?

Thank you yes, Councillor Stephen Broadbent, Leader of the Council.

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:20:27

Thank you Councillor Tett for the question.

I'll take some of it and let the others come back on some of the original KPIs.

You're absolutely right to recognise the importance of our asset holdings to not only deliver

services as Robert outlined but to help us shape places moving forward to meet

greater objectives some of which is in the corporate plan some of which will be

through things like the local plan and land assembly can be a key part of that

when we may turn in and purchase assets some might be to support regeneration

plans or the economic development plans.

I think beyond the specifics that the rest of the team will talk to about overall measurement,

if you were to link this to your next item and look at things like the link to the MTFP

and things like the internal borrowing that we're able to do, which would save us £2 .9

million pounds over the coming term by not having to use external borrowing, it's because

we make best use of the assets.

Some things are disposed of, some things come in, so that it meets corporate objectives

but also has a direct financial output.

That is a very helpful steer, I think, or metric as to are we managing the assets properly

to make sure we're retaining getting value out of the things that we have and where we

need to make disposals, how we're reinvesting that to ensure that the capital programme,

which is substantial, is well financed from and of itself.

I do think there's probably, notwithstanding what the team will say, there's also an element

of crossover.

We've already heard reference to audit and governance.

So some bits will be unpicked by that select committee as well.

But in here, this is the right place to look at considerable holdings of money of the public

purse.

And you're right, when this council was formed, that brought together all assets.

And we know even in the last year, some of that has continued to be disposed of over

time.

And that shows you how long it takes to not only make those changes, but how good forward

management of the capital programme will allow some of those movements.

QVR would be an obvious example.

But Robert, you probably want to say something more about specific metrics.

Thank you very much, Lida.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:23:12

And yes, building on that, I mean, particularly – so the question in regards to reviewing

properties and how often we sort of look at them and plan on them.

So we have asset plans for everything, and those are every year.

And then we have specific condition surveys, which are every five years.

And on the KPI front, on that, Amy and her team have a whole host of internal KPIs, bearing

in mind that the operational and the investment portfolio, you're two very different sort

of outcomes you would want, so they are held on different levels.

So I'm going to ‑‑ Amy, I don't know if there's anything further you want to add

to that.

Apologies, Chair.

I keep switching that off when I move it.

Thank you, Councillor Carrington.

Councillor Tett, thank you for your question.

Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets - 0:24:02

So just to kind of add to what Councillor Carrington was saying, as you can envisage

both the investment portfolio and the operational portfolio require a different set of KPIs,

and they are within the service area.

Just to break down that we are talking about property construction here, estate management

and asset management.

So it is the asset management plans and the cash flows that are refreshed every annum

that help drive that decision making.

And looking at the governance arrangements, that starts with an internal non -decision -making

body of the property oversight group before we then go through flight paths for key decisions.

In the estate management, that's obviously compliance driven.

So we've got statutory compliance and we've got a lot of KPIs around that, around Legionella,

Fly at fire asbestos and in our property construction that is all centred around project management and value for money

So I hope that provides a little bit more detail on the three areas

Of course council attack

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:25:01

So I thank very much the leader and the cabinet member and maybe for her comments. It's really really helpful. Thank you very much

So just as a committee charged with looking at it from a financial point of view

Are we right then to look to the new SAM to see what the process is for looking at what

we acquire, what we dispose of and what we maintain?

Or should we be looking elsewhere?

And again, as a committee, I'm not trying to look at the commercial size of this whatsoever,

don't expect anything confidential to be released.

But again, the KPIs that we as a committee should be looking at, not the sort of Simon

and other ones for, you know, individual buildings.

Do they come here or do they go toward it in governance

or do they go somewhere else entirely?

Who's taking the question?

Yeah, okay, so just to clarify.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:25:56

So, the SAMP, just to clarify what the SAMP is,

so the purpose, it's going to be just guiding decisions

about the assets and is the main reference point

when making them.

It's going to make certain that we ensure they are used effectively and help improve

the services and support financial stability.

So, like the corporate plan, it is the overarching sort of plan looking on that front.

I mean, which body it goes to – I'm looking at Sarah here.

I mean, would you – would you know – I presume it would come here.

I mean, I said the SAMP itself.

Maybe just say, there isn't a specific KPI to say,

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:26:37

have you successfully sold property X or Y?

Because that will come through, guided by the SAMP,

that will come through to say,

we have moved forward on our plan.

So if this was where you wanted to review the SAMP,

you'd say, well, you set sail last year saying,

you know, you're gonna,

and this isn't necessarily what it says,

you're going to rationalise the estate

in a particular town,

or you were going to purchase some things to do a land assembly to move forward.

You could do that, but there wouldn't be a KPI to say, oh, how did you get on?

Did you buy plot B of that particular road or not?

So I think probably it's not a KPI, but this is where you review, you'll be able to review,

this was the plan, how have you gone on with the plan, how did it work out?

And then when we get to budget scrutiny, as ever, there will be the, OK, what were the

total ins and outs of the capital asset holdings and any disposals or acquisitions during the

year.

So I think it's probably there will be different bits in different parts of the activity of

the committee at different times.

Thank you.

Amy, I've got a follow -up question.

You talked about sort of fire safety, et cetera.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:28:00

I'm curious are there any overdue high -risk statutory compliance issues relating to our assets at the moment high -risk ones

Not to my awareness no chair. Thank you

councillor daily

Thank you chair and

The reason why I declared that I'm back in full town council is because the question is specific for Beckonsfield

Cllr Christine Adali - 0:28:23

The Beckonsville town council have been trying to engage with bucks for over four years now on the future of the town hall without success

in December 2022

Buck buckinghamshire council promised us that the future of the town hall will be sorted within six months

And on that basis we held over the lease

Because it would have been expired so we agreed to hold it over. We're now four years down the line and we're still no further

When will Bucks engage properly with the town council and have a sensible conversation about

the ways forward?

Thank you very much for your question. Yes, no, this is one which I agree has been going

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:29:05

on for far too long and is one which was one of the first things on my desk. I'm very happy

to say obviously I can't go into too much detail because there are commercial matters

here so I cannot go into too much detail, but I'm happy to say that I know the team

at the beginning of the month wrote to the clerk saying very much in my urging, saying

we want to meet, we want to discuss, we want to get through something, I'll be attending

this meeting.

I don't know if we've had a response yet.

I'm conscious the relevant officer went on leave, but he very much sent an email to the

clerk requesting this meeting to start going into high level negotiations and discussions

on this.

So the communication has been sent from the council and I am very keen to get this get a

result and get this resolved

Thank You councillor Schafer

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:30:01

Thank You chairman

Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:30:04

So I read with interest about the

Corporate landlord model and the forthcoming samp, which I'm sure we are all interested in

seeing when it comes to us.

So the report currently makes a strong case for the financial and operational benefits

of the corporate landlord model, and I think we all look forward to seeing those.

The question I have is that any decisions around using replacement, repurposing, possibly

disposal of assets which has been mentioned a couple of times already may

well have implications for communities. We are in parts of a very rural county

as has been repeatedly stated by members of all by all members from across the

county and that often raises questions of access. So I'd quite like to know what

assessment has been made or will be made on how any changes to the asset management and

the way in which we use, own, possibly dispose or repurpose assets will affect community

access and resident convenience.

How is this being factored into the decision making?

Thank you very much.

I mean, so obviously there's two parts to the question.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:31:34

I think there's the overall state rationalisation, and then second I think a query regarding

sort of the overall governance process in regard to asset disposals.

So I mean, on the first sort of part of the question there, on the state rationalisation,

so obviously we started life as a number of legacy councils, and we've been going through

the process of obviously combining that all into one unitary, which has included obviously

the number of offices which have come with that and looking at which offices we need

where, which sort of operational assets, so to speak, do we need in locations, and a number

of decisions have been made on those.

I mean, obviously the one, the most recent one, High Wycombe QVR.

So throughout the process in regard to the ongoing construction of Denmark Street, which

which is being run by the property construction team.

That front, all of that is being done with in mind to access for the community.

It's obviously going to have a council access point.

Sort of everything that QVR has is going to be in Denmark Street, and it is in a more

central location.

All of that has been taken into account during the process and is ongoing.

I know Amy has, I think, weekly meetings where all sorts of things particularly like that

are considered and the overall state rationalisation, we are always reviewing all things, but I

reassure you and people watching that access and particularly for residents and everyone,

very much is one of the key things which is always being considered.

On the second part of the question in regards to disposals and the governance process there,

So, we have a very, very strict process on this, which all starts with the capital investment

strategy which Council approved along with the medium -term financial plan in February,

which very much says this all must go through the Capital Programme Management Office, which

is a team who basically fulfil the assurance function and oversee life cycle of all of

our capital projects and are the ones who make certain that the governance process is

where it should be and that the project will go through the relevant different steps, which

includes going through CMT, corporate management team have a capital subgroup where you have

– are you the chairman of that?

Or is it Richard Barker, the chairman of that?

It's not me.

Oh, it's Dave.

Dave Skinner is the chairman of the capital subgroup, which is a number of specialist

officers who kick the tyres on all of the projects, making certain is this the right

one to do, is this basically are all the key things being considered.

And then it goes to the member oversight side, which is the Corporate Capital Investment

Board, which is part of Cabinet, which I chair and has the two deputy leaders on it and the

cabinet member for Children's.

And we look at it from the member side and kick the tyres there.

And then when we get to a stage where we think we want to progress further, it will then

come to Cabinet, where, like all things, the papers are released one week before, and all

members of the public and all members are obviously invited and allowed to submit their

views on it.

And then when it goes through Cabinet, normally it's sort of two -stage.

You have the first sort of stage, so to speak, is agreeing to go to market, and then if that

is approved, then you have the marketing process, and then it goes through the process again

and comes back to cabinet if it has been discovered there is a way for the disposal.

So there is a very long and very strenuous governance process on that.

Councillor Broadbent, did you want to come in?

Yeah, yeah, just to add on that.

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:35:36

So just to take slight issue with part of the question

where you said it may well have an implication

for communities, no, it will have an implication

for communities, and as we represent the entire council,

the entire county area, we have to balance all those demands

on what is needed to be provided.

Robert's taken you through very well some of the examples.

So sometimes, QVR, work with the NHS,

us do a disposal to them that is a great new community facility for health, whilst bringing

the archives to Wickham to make sure we keep our accreditation and providing access through

Denmark Street. Also in Wickham along Bridge Street we had some holdings there that we

were able to dispose of so the college group can come in and build the biggest new education

facility we're having in the county, probably for the next generation, certainly currently.

the old depot that we don't need anymore,

we brought forward to housing further up near Wing.

Health on the High Street in Wicom,

it's not all about, sorry, in Aylesbury,

it's not all about big disposals,

it's about the use of the assets that we have

so that Health on the High Street can bring health access

to residents of Aylesbury much more easily.

And of course in your own ward,

the Buckingham Old Daycare Centre

has now been turned into an expansion

of the SEND provision that we need.

So every single decision we make

has to balance all the different elements of council, council services and access to

residents and ultimately, and we'll bring it back round to that impact on capital funding

overall.

So sometimes a disposal is made for good reasons to be able to allow other people to deliver

some of this.

That capital receipt is then reinvested into elements we want to see of the capital programme

that might be conversions or new acquisitions.

So, it's a constant assessment of impact, need, best value, as Robert mentioned earlier

with the 151, to make sure that we help shape places and deliver services the best for residents.

And that's why there's a strong link between the SAMP and the corporate plan that we passed

last night.

Thank you, Councillor Broadbent.

I have a follow -up question on that.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:37:45

I read in a report somewhere where it says that the local ward members are consulted

where required.

What's the policy on this?

You know, who determines when local ward members are consulted and, you know, are they consent

required, et cetera, et cetera.

Thank you.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:38:03

I think, so that refers to, I think, the officer executive decisions, which I think most of

you will have received.

These are, so this all relates to the schedule, scheme of delegation, which relates to the

asset and the value, and that determines at which sort of in regard to the governance

process where it will come out.

I mean, when we're on the lower ones, I think it's below half a million pounds, and particularly

in regard to leases.

This is the officer executive's decision, which is a document basically the officers

draw up sort of the report explaining the situation and why the decision was taken.

This is shared with members who, during consultation period, where they have three days to feed

in the local views, and then those are considered in the overall decision, which is also done

alongside myself as the cabinet member.

When it comes to the higher -level ones, the ones which come to cabinet, so using Queen

Victoria Victoria Road as an example and Eastern streets we had numerous meetings with the

relevant ward members councillor councillor Clark and councillor Mabu Hussein and actually

with Eastern Street we're having ongoing meetings with them during the life of the project so

hope that answers your question thank you councillor Covington council shape for somebody

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:39:35

jumping in. Do you have a follow -up question? I do have a follow -up, a quick one, please.

Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:39:38

I'd like to thank the leader for clarifying and correcting me on the fact that, of course,

all these decisions will have and not just may have impacts on the communities, because

I fully agree with that. I also thank the cabinet member for outlining the governance

process, in particular the process of consulting board members. I, as an aside, I should add

that usually a three -day window to respond is,

you know, is challenging, it's ambitious,

but we'll take that away.

I would like to know whether there are any processes

by which the community is involved more widely,

is consulted more widely.

I'm thinking of community groups,

I'm thinking of local residents,

I am thinking of town and parish council.

Is there a mechanism for this,

Or is this all supposed to be channelled through the ward members?

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:40:38

I mean, the mechanism, I mean, within the papers you will see the community boards are

consulted.

And I'm glad you mentioned town and parish councils because when we have, particularly

disposal papers, we consult, we consult with the parish council and we get their opinion

on it.

I mean, a good example is a land at Cooks Lane in Mursley, which we are coming up, as

I mentioned, for the second paper after the marketing process.

So, just coming back to cabinet, I think, next week.

No, on the 22nd of July, the parish council were consulted.

The land is in their neighbourhood plan, and we have also spoken with them during the process

as well.

So yes, we do talk to them. It's not just through the ward members. Thank you councillor Huxley

Thank you chairman

Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:41:32

My first part of the question is specific about one particular property

the sports and social club at Stoke Mandeville as to what the latest is there and coupled with that is the

is the interest that

Ailsbury town council have in several other facilities

Not dissimilar in a way playing facilities

Also along

Talking about communities as chairman of Ailsbury Community Board. I'm

slightly concerned about the situation

regarding changing facilities

along with the interest shown by Elsbury Town Council, can we have some update on those

situations please?

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:42:32

So I'll just take the first one and then I will come back to you to ask on the second

one.

So the sports and social club in State Mandeville, so this is another one I'm following on from

Councillor Dali's question, where we have been in engagement with the Parish Council.

We've had numerous meetings with them and there's been a lot of email correspondence.

Again there was one at the beginning of this month which was sent to them explaining the

situation that they submitted an offer following the process with the JAR and we have considered

it but we are working with the agenda.

And once again, there are some commercial points here, so I can't go into too much detail.

But we are in the process of this will be considered by Cabinet at some point.

There is a way being agreed, a way coming forward which is going to be discussed at

Cabinet.

I can't remember the exact date, but I think it's going to be sometime probably September

or October time where there will be progress.

And as I said, the Parish Council have got a response on this, but there is going to

be more information will come after the cabinet meeting where the proposal will

be voted on could you repeat the other question I think is on changing

facilities to do with other playing facilities that as we turn Council have

shown an interest in devolution I would put it under but yes the it's

Specifically really to do with the changing facilities which are

In quite a few of them are not up to standard but

Elsby Town Council have shown an interesting

taking

Several of the playing facilities

Well, thank you for that and I am aware they have written a letter on that front and I know my colleague the camera member

Culture and Leisure is looking into this and I think he has reassured me.

He is going to visit every single one himself.

Don't worry, it will be completely appropriate.

He's not just going to turn up into changing rooms.

He is going to properly make and he is undergoing a tour of it all and then I think he will

be responding in due course to them.

Thank you.

Councillor Pohl.

Thank you, Chairman.

Cllr Chris Poll - 0:45:01

and I should just mention that as the leader has mentioned Health on the High Street I

have an interest there and my wife is the operational manager of that facility. I have

a general question about achieving best value when we dispose of properties and I don't

know that dispose is the right word I think it gives members of the public the wrong idea

about what disposal actually means because it could be several things and achieving best

value. So how do we adequately help taxpayers, our taxpayers, understand our findings for

best value? And it's been mentioned already, I reference particularly the Queen Victoria

road offices in High Wycombe, that there were confidential aspects and what that unfortunately

did was allow space for theories to percolate online and in the press to a

quite high level about how the council were throwing away a valuable asset and

the fact that it ended up with the NHS taking it over may not necessarily mean

I don't know whether it does or not that we achieve best financial value but

value to the community and the county, you know, may be ultimately enhanced by their

occupancy.

So it's how do we counter this period of, in an information vacuum, speculation that

goes on online and in the press?

I'll take that.

You're absolutely right, Councillor Paul, and I think the reference we've just had

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:46:43

to SAMP will mean, as Robert said, it's a public facing document that will show the

the overall direction.

It won't necessarily say this site, that site,

the next site are going to be looked at for,

I wrote down relinquishing ownership

if you don't like this post.

We always, there are two parts really to best value.

The overriding one is the financial best value

for the taxpayer which is what quite rightly

the Section 151 officer will always push us on.

The track record we have, and I listed a number of those in response to Councillor Shafer

a moment ago, should give people reassurance that actually when we not only balance best

value, the outcomes are, broadly speaking, positive.

And QVR is a perfect example because the placard waving and wailing that happened in what you

called the vacuum, where people have assumed this would be sold for one purpose, did not

come to fruition. And yet there's now universal agreement and acceptance that the outcome

was really positive, not only financially for the council and the wider taxpayer, but

for the communities and people of High Wycombe. What you will notice if you look at things

very carefully is, as Robert said earlier, there are a couple of bites of the cherry

typically when in public, when a paper would come to cabinet to say we are seeking a disposal

or to market with the intent of potential relinquishment of ownership.

Often in there, some of the marketing materials or the report would indicate some likely uses.

Now, we can, there is always that requirement to look at best value, but, and particularly

in the light of local plan and regeneration plans, it's important that SAMP will feed

through, again, corporate plan, SAMP, giving you a golden thread to say, there is a strategy

at play here, and it might be, sometimes, it may not be best value through the pure

capital, disposal receipt, capital receipt upon disposal, it may be and again, we reference

the next paper on how our assets can help drive either revenue income or cost saving.

So sometimes it's not as simple as you are selling this just to pocket a quick buck.

It's all about, as I referenced earlier, delivering strategically for people and assessing the

impact that we know that we'll have on the community.

But none of that takes away the requirement

to satisfy the legal duty we have on best value.

So best value is two parts.

There's the financial and the impact.

Financial, legally, will take a big precedent,

but that doesn't mean it's only take the biggest offer

because of the impact of a disposal or realignment

or even a land assembly, what that can have.

I ought to just share with Fiona,

that she's content with that description. Thank you, leader. Sorry, and I didn't introduce

myself earlier. My name is Fiona Jump. I'm the Deputy Chief Finance Officer here at the

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 0:50:07

Council. So, I agree 100 percent with what the leader has set out. There are two aspects

to best value, the financial considerations and also the community considerations. Financial

considerations are incredibly important for this Council, but so are community considerations

as well, and both are considered under the best value duty. I would also say, in terms

of that point about community understanding or those reading about our decision to relinquish

an asset, to use the leader's phrase. We try and include as much as possible in those decision -making

reports that accompany those decisions to make it as clear as possible what the options

are that are available. But they are commercial transactions by their nature, as you'll appreciate.

So there are some aspects of it which have to be considered under confidential discussion,

which I know is appreciated by the committee. But we do try and make those reports as open

as possible in terms of setting out the options that are available. Thank you.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:51:01

Thank you. Last question, I think. Councillor Mormino. Thank you.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:51:04

Thank you, Chairman. An observation and a question. The observation first. It says at

At the end of the report, there are no legal or financial implications to this report.

I find that extraordinary, since not just in this report but in the next one as well.

We are talking about major change programmes.

We talked about the corporate landlord programme, but there is also temporary accommodation

action plan, the same improvement action plan.

I find it impossible to think that there are no legal or financial implications to such

major change problems.

Now to my question, because I'm going to keep on the theme of value for money, but also

the KPIs that were referenced before.

And it relates to the use of external advisors.

I might disclose here that I have a keen interest on external advisors and consultants in public

services.

The report lists the services that Carter Jonas is providing, the fixed and the call

of services.

It doesn't provide any KPIs, costs or performance benchmarks.

How is value for money assessed here?

And also the report mentions the cheque -in challenge of the external advice, but it doesn't

describe how it works.

So, what are the governance mechanisms there?

So how do we know who will get the best out of these consultants?

Well thank you very much.

And Fred, I must disagree with you when you say it's an observation and a question.

I personally think it's two questions.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:52:52

And I mean on the first question, regarding the no legal and financial implications of

the paper, the reason why for this specific paper is because this is an overview of the

situation.

There are no decisions.

And that is why it means no legal and financial implications of this specific paper.

I mean, obviously, the things you have mentioned very much do have legal and financial implications,

but this particular paper we are looking at now is an overview, and there are no decisions

being made.

So that is why there are no legal and financial implications coming from this specific paper

that we're looking at.

On the second one, regarding external advisors and sort of how we hold them to account, KPIs

make certain that they are delivering value for money.

So very simply, there is a contract with them.

And the contract has certain things within it

which they need to perform against.

And how we do this is I think you meet with Cartagena's

on a monthly basis.

I have an annual meeting with them, which we had last month,

where we run them through a number of things.

And I can assure you, very robust conversation

on a number of things.

So I assure you that it very much is there, the oversight.

And I'll hand to Amy, as you're the one who has the effectively day -to -day interaction

with them.

Yeah.

Thank you, Councillor Canson.

Councillor, thank you for your question.

Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets - 0:54:13

I haven't listed all the KPIs of each contract in this paper because we're just drawing attention

here to Cartagionis within the asset management function, but we have a significant amount

of contracts across corporate property and assets, tensor for our mechanical work, churches

for our fire.

Every single contract has KPIs.

All of those have contract meetings.

And when it comes to cheque and challenge, I just referred to that 70 % of the work is

done in -house by our asset management team, but we do have to provide, we do have to rely

on professional expertise at the moment in time.

But all of those asset managers, as Councillor Carington indicated before, are professionally

qualified chartered surveyors.

Thank you.

Any further questions for members?

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:54:57

No?

Okay, well, thank you.

If not, we move on to agenda item number seven

7 Budget Outturn 2025-26

Right, this is the item number seven the budget outrun for 25 26

Our invite added a the leader or councillor Cramington to introduce report

I'll let I'll let Robert doing given it's got his name on it

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:55:26

But and as I said to you earlier chairman, I'm afraid it will have to leave fairly soon

And I've asked someone if we can – I'll be here till court passed.

Thank you.

Okay.

No, you're good.

Thank you very much.

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:55:40

And on that, I promise I will try to be as quick as possible in my sort of overview of

this, but there obviously is quite a lot to talk about.

So if you're happy, German, are you happy for me to talk to the revenue side and then

go to – and allow questions on that, and then talk on capital, or do you want it all

sort of taking them in one. I think we take it all in one. Okay perfect. Right so this report sets

out the financial position for the council at the end of last financial year. So the key thing to

note is the out -term position is positive with a surplus of £4 .4 million which has been contributed

to general fund reserves which allows us to maintain the general fund balance at a consistent

percentage of net operating expenditure over the course of the MDF period, going up to

28, 29.

So this financial year, there are several one -off factors which have positively impacted

the revenue position, and it's important to stress these will not be repeated in future.

These have allowed us to make some one -off contributions to reserves, which are covered

in the report in parallel of 2 .6, and these are going to be invested in key projects for

our residents and strengthen our financial resilience.

In addition, we have successfully implemented financial control actions across all portfolios

to contain spend and deliver on our savings.

Despite the strong performance, it's important to note the financial position for the coming

year remains challenging with economic volatility from domestic and overseas events, particularly

in the Middle East, which is likely to cause inflationary pressures on our budgets.

We also, as ever, as mentioned last night during the discussion of the corporate plan,

there will be further growth in demand and complexity of need in our key services of

the critical value for children's social care, adult social care, temporary accommodation,

home to school and high needs budgets in the dedicated schools grant.

So, on the portfolio budget side for revenue, they achieved a favourable variance of £13 .8

million pounds, which is 2 .6%.

This is the first time since the formation of the new

nutrient tree council this has been achieved.

And this is due to the very strong foundations and the hard

work which we were left with by the previous administration and

previous leader who has no idea where he's sitting right now.

So these favourable variances.

No, I wouldn't expect that at all.

So the favourable variances in particular are health and well -being, so 5 .6 million pounds.

This is from strong delivery of savings, which is through efficiencies in reviewing care

packages and maximising the use of block contracts, which has resulted in overall unit costs,

a reduction in overall unit costs of care packages.

Home to school transport, £4 .6 million.

This is from lower than expected growth in number of seven passengers, with the growth

expected to materialise in the second half of this year.

Proactive management of contracts is also, again, successfully driven down costs.

In planning, £3 .7 million from additional income following changes in statutory planning

fees, and £2 million in property from additional income and strong cost control and debt management.

Unfortunately, the adverse variances, these are offset by,

are 5 .2 million pounds in education and children services.

This is due to high demand in external residential placement

budgets from numbers of looked after children

and increased unit costs.

The savings delivered from opening our own children's homes

and increase in foster care have significantly helped

to mitigate these pressures.

It's important to note, if you can cast your mind back to Q1

last financial year, the adverse variance was 4 million.

And so through this management, we have been able to keep it at 5 .2 rather than being substantially

more.

And also into temporary accommodation, there's 0 .6 million pounds.

This is due to an increase in the number of households needing support.

There have been a number of successes in TA.

This is from the creation of new units, renegotiation of rates for nightly paid accommodation, and

investment in moving offices to support households in longer

term accommodation.

On corporate budgets, the variance there is a positive

one of 9 .1 million pounds.

This is from additional interest income on cash balances from

interest rates remaining higher for longer than expected.

And 2 .9 million pounds from borrowing internally to fund

the capital programme rather than externally.

So as mentioned, this has allowed us to be in a position

to make contributions to reserves as set out earlier.

I will just briefly touch upon the dedicated schools grant, because obviously of the size

of this and the importance, it must effectively get its own section, in that the budget was

set with a deficit of 22 .9 million pounds, and the end -of -year position reflected in

the report is a deficit of 20 .7 million pounds.

So, the variance being in the early year budgets, obviously there's been some change on this,

which later I will let Fiona sort of expand on more detail.

So the cumulative balance on the DSG deficit reserve is reflected in the report.

In this particular report, at 45 .2 million pounds, we're conscious with the accounts

there is a slight variance, which as I've mentioned, Fiona will cover after I've spoken.

So, as we've discussed a number of times here and in the other chamber, the DSG High

Needs Stability Grant was announced by government in February 2026.

This is where it is expected.

We'll fund 90 percent of the deficit, which currently stands at 38 .5 million pounds.

However, this payment is subject to confirmation for the Department for Education following

So this, we have now submitted our Senate reform plan to the

government, and we wait to hear from them on this side.

And funds to repay the remaining 10 % have been prudently set

aside from the reserves.

On achievement of savings, it's been very strong with an

over -delivery of just under a million pounds,

or 1 .2 % of the target, the very challenging target of

76 .9 million pounds.

Now we're on capital.

So the capital programme budget was 173 .8 million pounds, and the out -turn for the year was

155 .8 million pounds, which is 90 percent of the programme and meeting the target of no

more than 10 percent slippage.

The key delivery highlights of this programme are highways investment, so just under 35

million pounds spent on our ambitious 120 million pound roads programme.

This is ahead of the 32 .3 million pound target, including just under 24 million pounds on

preventative maintenance and just under 11 million pounds on resurfacing works.

On infrastructure improvements, we've had 60 million pounds invested in priority highways

infrastructure.

This includes the Marley Bridge, 2 .5 million pounds of I think it's just under I think

4 million pounds the overall cost.

Drainage, £3 .3 million, and street lighting, £1 .6 million.

And then through the housing and infrastructure funds, we have delivered £42 .3 million, which

includes progress on the South East Aylesbury Link Road, CELA, and contract signing for

Woodlands Development, and this in turn will release the Eastern Link Road for Aylesbury

in education.

So, we have had 20 million pounds invested in school places, including 30 million in

primary, notably 12 .2 million pounds for Kingsborough primary, which was in my cabinet members report

last night.

I know the cabinet member mentioned that the two of us, we had a visit to it, and it's

very impressive.

And 4 .8 million pounds in secondary expansion and 2 million in STEM provision.

So, 80 million pounds, 10 percent of the programme has been

reprofiled into future years with an updated programme is going

to be presented to Cabinet at some point in the very

near future.

On capital funding, so this programme is funded through

grants, capital receipts, developer contributions,

and some revenue funding, all of which met or exceeded targets.

On the grants, we've had just under 104 million pounds was

budgeted in 25 -26 with all the planned funding received.

In addition, there was some of this funding was in advance, 30 million in Department for

Education basic needs grant and 43 million pounds from HS2, which will generate future

treasury management benefits.

On the capital receipts, we've achieved 10 .2 million pounds, including through the sale

of some key asset – what was the word?

Yes, relinquishing ownership of assets such as Queen Victoria Road in Wickham to the Buckinghamshire

Healthcare Trust.

And through SIL, we have £10 .1 million received, which has exceeded the target of £5 million,

with the surplus to be considered in the MTFP next year.

So, I just finally just want to say on debt, we are strong performance continues in this

area with our KPI measure for unsecured debts of over 90 days, reducing further from Q3

to 9 .2 million pounds, which is well below the target of 12 million pounds.

And payment performance, this is also consistently good, and the target of 95 percent prompt

payment has been exceeded, again, with a result of 97 .3 percent.

That is me.

I will now hand over to Fiona, particularly on the DSG point.

Thank you, Councillor Carrington.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:05:57

Just on the dedicated schools grant point that Councillor Carrington has raised, sorry,

just to explain to you all, the report you're looking at now is the Council's provisional

financial out term and it's provisional because it's subject to our external audit process

and also the publication of our draught accounts which we published at the end of June in line

with the statutory deadline.

So between cabinet considering this report in early June and us publishing we made one

amendments to the accounts which was around the dedicated schools grant deficit.

So just to recap, we set up the budget for dedicated schools grant with a deficit, 22 .9

million as Robert has mentioned, so we expected to come in with a deficit as well.

And in terms of the Council's books that's been currently sort of effectively written

out by a government mandated statutory override.

So in terms of where we've ended up at the end of the year, the deficit on the dedicated

schools grant for 25 -26 was 18 .3 million, which is a small reduction on the figure reported

of 20 .9 million in the report that you're looking at.

The cumulative position on the dedicated schools grant debt is 42 .8 million, so that's everything

up until the end of March 2026.

Roberts also then refers to the high needs stability grant, which is a grant that we're

hopeful to get from government to help support these costs.

And as Robert has mentioned, we've now submitted our SEND reform plan as an organisation to

government, we hope to hear back on that.

If we are successful, we are expecting around 90 % of that cumulative deficit to be paid

to us in the form of high -need stability grant, and that would be $38 .5 million.

If you want any more detail on this, have a look at our statement of accounts.

It's a riveting read.

You can see what the details are in there.

Thank you.

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:07:38

And just if I – I mean, there's a lot of detail in here in the – what Fiona just

took you through, you might want to plough into a bit more.

I just thought it might be useful to just take a slight step back.

We've been talking today about corporate plan, budgeting.

To bring this through in the way we've built on the strong foundations, financial foundations

that the Council has and that was recognised in the corporate peer review.

To bring this through though in the light of rising demand and the pressures that all

Councils are facing is a really good news storey for our residents because that means

it's allowed us to give some more choices into what we do with not only the one -offs money,

there is one -off, but how we mitigate risk. So when we went through budget scrutiny last year,

this committee, members of it, said we can see what you're doing to manage risk, but please do

in -year, if there are opportunities, make sure you look at how you can further fill the reserves for

risk. You will see in the report how we have done that, the mitigating future fund, for

example, is in section 2 .6. I want to just talk about the DSG again, though.

So there is no guarantee from government that the 90 percent agreement for this year will

continue into years two and three of our financial plan as things stand. But it's the best

crystallised shortfall, the 10 % needs paying for now by local taxation, not by national

taxation.

We estimated that at the time of the budget to be around 13 .8 million.

So you will see, despite the fact we will not need to pay that out for three years,

that with the one off windfall, if you like, that we have, we've taken the decision to

to put that aside now rather than seeking to look for that in year three of the budget

when we don't know what the situation will look like.

So by putting that aside now, we've taken a very prudent approach to saying we know

this risk is coming even if the 90 % moves or as you've heard there's some puts and

takes that might, you know, 13 .8 might be 13 .6 or 14, but the money is there principally

to be able to meet that criteria now so we've got confidence as we move into the years two

and three of the budget in what is available.

Robert outlined some of the investment in unseen assets like culverts in drainage and

the underside of bridges.

That's on top of the record number we're putting into roads and I think it's good that you're

having this discussion around the fact that elements like that are in there.

And the choices I say are about meeting resident priorities.

So we've chosen to double putting a million pounds

into the planning appeals fund.

We are dealing, as we all know,

with the local plan at the moment,

and by having additional money in there,

that means the council can challenge

where we think there is a suitable case

and it meets, will make decisions on a case -by -case basis.

There is money there to make sure we stand up

for our residents, as you would expect

this administration to do. And in there, the Horizons programme, £600 ,000 continues the

Horizons programme in the light of the government cutting relevant funding because the Economic

Growth Plan and our Skills Plan requires us to meet the aspiration and opportunity for

all that we discussed last night in the corporate plan. That is us being able to allow more

people to finish their Horizons programme. And these are the people who are furthest from

work to help them into work and it is a successful programme.

And then there's bits in there like helping offset theatre maintenance requirements.

So it does what this committee asked of us previously.

If you have opportunities, please put money into risk reserves.

We have done, biggest of which is that DSG.

So hopefully that will be reassuring to the committee.

Thank you for the presentations.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:11:51

I think we should acknowledge the favourable outcome that we've achieved, but I'm very

concerned about the DSG.

Just to clarify, we are relying on the government for about 90 percent, but that's subject to

the high -needs stability grant, which is then conditional on the local SEND reform plan.

And that 90 percent is guaranteed, or it could go down to 70 percent, it could go down to

60 percent.

I know you set aside 10 % from reserves, but what happens if we have to dig further into

that 10 % for the first year and in subsequent years, what happens then?

So Fiona will correct me if I go wrong here.

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:12:30

So in year one, i .e. this year, the government have initially committed to cover 90 % of the

DSG historical that we have.

What Fiona was outlining is some changes happen in year about what qualifies in that.

but broadly speaking, that was the commitment.

Subsequent to that, Department for Education came out

and said, oh, if you're doing that,

we need you to put a send package,

a send improvement plan together

in order to qualify for the money.

We have met that condition by submitting it.

We will hear, I think in September time,

whether that has come through

in order to qualify for the 90%.

The expectation is, unless something extraordinary happens,

and something extraordinary happens,

that that 90 % will happen in year one.

It is my belief, this was a debt built up

through national government diktat on how for us to do it,

they should be funding 100%.

And that's what I mean by crystallising that other 10 %

onto local tax paying.

However, we have to obviously make provision for that 10%.

Where the government are less clear,

is in years two and three, the wording is something like,

With an expectation a similar arrangement will follow in years two and three.

I mean that's not an exact quote but that's basically what it says.

So not just Buckinghamshire but all authorities will be grappling with what that means.

I have raised this directly with government ministers and at the moment

it does seem like the expectation is it will be 90%.

What I'm concerned about is whether they do what they've done with the SEND provision

and begin to introduce other qualifying criteria, but at the moment that has not been communicated.

So for prudential financial planning matters, the indication is it will be 90%.

Hence why we want to put aside sufficient money to cover what would be the 10%, but

But as I said, that may be too much, it may be not enough.

We'll know more as we go, hopefully, as we go into years two and three.

But just as the same we did in previous administration, we put around 20 million aside for the impact

of so -called fair funding.

That proved to be about half of what we need because there was an even more swinging cut

by the government on funding.

So, we're working on the prudence of best information we have at the time.

Obviously that money will not sit idle and we will use it through treasury management

so it retains value for the next two years.

I think if the committee agrees, I think could we have an update on this DSG situation as

soon as possible?

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:15:20

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:15:25

Yeah, I think particularly when we hear about the SEND element, obviously that will report

also into children's but more than happy to make sure you get notification here a of this

year's 90 % and if any further commentary comes about years two and three I'll let you know.

Thank you council abroad then I'm conscious it's quarter past three.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:15:41

Any questions?

Oh, council poll.

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:15:50

Thank you I'm not sure whether it's for the leader or for the cabinet member but I would

like to understand so at last year's budget scrutiny I particularly and the committee

focused on the use of reserves and that was explained to me about how these were built up over years for a specific purpose

which was very pleasing because I thought they were just a pop and we dipped into that and then worried about what happened in the future

but that's not the case. So I'd like to know where any specific earmarked reserves, where that money comes from

can that come from anywhere or does it come from somewhere specific?

do HS2 pay for, you know, the discretionary schools grant, for example.

And then also, if I may, internal borrowing.

Now I understand that if we, if one department lends to another, they still expect a rate

of return for that.

And that might compare to were they to go out to market, you know, favourable for a commercial

rate.

But squaring up best value, if one department wants to borrow from another, why can't they

charge internally a commercial rate that's 2 % more than an internal rate?

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:17:06

Maybe what I'll do is let the finance professionals answer part two, but other than to say, obviously,

we have to budget that if we needed to take on borrowing, what would that be in the market?

There's – sometimes you sort of think it's not necessarily real money.

It's the conversation we had earlier, which is we have taken a disposal.

What is the best use for that?

We don't want to – the cost of doing something should be minimised where possible.

And if that means that happens internally, rather than paying a bank fee on a loan, that

clearly is preferable.

I'll let people say more on that later.

But on the first point of reserves, and I was very keen to say this in the budget presentation

in February this year.

We take an approach where you can set aside money into reserve for a specific purpose.

This DSG money is exactly that.

So, in two years' time, if we draw down the $13 .8 million because we have to pay the balance

on the DSG, that is not a, or we've had to dip into reserves lack of financial planning.

It's actually the reverse.

We're creating the savings pot to meet what we expect to be the known liability.

Just as this year, you'll remember through budget, then we've had to set aside some money

in each of the next two years for systems.

So when we draw down that, that's not having to dip into reserves.

That is using the money you've set aside.

So a bit like you might say, I'm saving up for, I don't know, a new car at home.

When you go and buy the car, that's not a paddock purchase.

That's, you have planned this to ensure yourself of affordability.

So that is why I was keen to stress that today, because putting this money aside, everyone

I assume will be content with, but in two years' time when we draw that down, that is

a considered action that is not dipping into reserves and having spent a number of reserves.

So I value that question.

I will now run, but I'll ask Fiona maybe to give you more on your financing point.

Thank you all.

Thank you for coming today.

So just a couple of points on the question

that's come from Councillor Powell.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:19:12

So firstly on earmarked reserves.

So the way in which those are resourced

will be through our year -end financial position.

So the actual underlying source can be a number of things,

income from fees and charges, council tax income.

There'll also be other sources of income,

perhaps non -ring fence grants.

There's a whole range of income sources to the council.

If those resources haven't been utilised in a year,

one of the ways we can utilise them in future years

is to transfer them through reserves.

So that's the sort of a summary of the sources

that would go through to reserves.

On the internal borrowing point, as an organisation,

we borrow to fund our finance, our capital programme if at all.

So because we have reasonable cash balances,

rather than having to go out to externally borrow

to fund the investment in assets around the county,

we're actually able to borrow from our own internal cash balances.

It's a slightly odd concept, but it basically means

we can use our own cash resources to finance our capital programme.

So it's more about that than it is about, say, for example, one department lending to

another, which is not something that we would do.

It's not an efficient way of operating.

It's not something I would endorse at all, or something that we need to do at all.

It really is about how we pay for our capital programme.

So I hope that makes sense.

So it's cheaper for us to use our own cash balances than it is to go to an external borrowing

source and pay a market rate, or the rate that the main lending body for the full councils

actually offers, which is the Public Works Loan Board. So I hope that adds some clarity.

It does. It's helping me understand. I think others as well. But do we expect a return

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:20:43

from that, from a capital project that's utilising unspent monies within the financial year?

Will they be paying an interest rate on that? So when we decide to proceed with capital

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:20:59

projects and that's a decision that's taken by yourselves as members as part of the budget

setting process. One of the things that we will have done is due diligence on the business

case for that particular project and included within that would be the expected return on

that particular project, taking in mind any borrowing that needs to be applied. So it's

all taken into account as part of the decision making process before anything is sort of

put forward for approval by members and it's part of the capital programme.

Just to be absolutely clear, Chairman, so it's like the best value question I had earlier,

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:21:29

utilising available cash balance to assist with a capital project may not necessarily

have a cash value return, but it has a benefit for the community, whatever.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Powell.

Councillor Dev Dhillon.

Thank you, thank you, Chairman.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:21:48

Cllr Dev Dhillon - 1:21:53

Chairman you asked part of my question and I think it was answered by leader very well. That's fine

but looking at the executive summary at paragraph 1 .8 1 .9 on DST and sent report it really and I heard from

cabinet member Robert Carrington about

45 .2 million reports at 45 .5 million

This is like a money walking out of the door or it is it is changing every minute

now when I read that report and I looked at all that and

I looked and then I went to a MTF P2526 saving and the figure which says at the bottom education

children services DST saving of 6 .42 million and I thought if we are getting 90 percent

deficit services have come back to us which again we are still debating what risk assumptions

or impact do we have in our next budget of 26 -27, or how are we dealing with it?

I know we heard that we have got some reserves, we have got some contingencies, and we are

working on that.

But still, it would be really nice to know that will we be able to achieve those savings

and mitigate some of the risks and assumptions that we have?

Well, no, thank you for the question, Councillor Dhillon.

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:23:11

And yes, I think as the leader said, that we are very much sort of waiting on the government

with their slightly changed goalposts in regard to that.

But I mean, when you say the impact, and we'll -of course we will.

I mean, this is -I mean, I think someone asked in a previous meeting, I mean, the 151 officer,

what is -what keeps you awake at night?

And I mean, this DSG, I mean, without hesitation, that was the first thing he said.

Of course, this is the priority thing.

All things are priorities, but this in particular is in all budget decisions.

And when we start the budget process, even now, before is everything.

So, I mean, the work is fully underway at factoring that in and covering all scenarios,

be it best case, be it worst case, so that we are provided, that we are ready, whatever

happens.

And I'll go to Fiona if she wants to add anything further.

Just to say, in terms of the forward look on the dedicated schools grant and any risk

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:24:11

around associated savings that relate to those budgets, those have been really tested really

thoroughly as part of the development of the budget for 26 -27 onwards.

So that due diligence has been done.

There is, of course, risk.

There always is when we set any budget, but we've done everything we can as an organisation

to try and manage and mitigate those going forward.

And of course, if there's any particular sort of deviation in terms of variance to budget,

that will be reported through in the normal way through to cabinet and then

coming through to yourselves for discussion so those that oversight is

there as well. Thank you. Council Tet. Yes thank you.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:24:46

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:24:49

Just overarching comment of course anything that the government tells us

may not actually hold beyond the end of the week. I know the government was our

government minister was asked this morning about one aspect of policy

whether it would last until next Monday and she couldn't answer but it would. So

So it will be interesting to see whether the new Secretary of State for Education, they're

different from the previous one, or indeed Ms. Mamou, when she takes over as Chancellor

of the Exchequer, has a different view on what they're going to do for the special needs

deficit.

Leaving that aside, I used to understand this stuff, and I thank you for a really good explanation,

but I've just got a bit of a puzzle.

The Figure 1 shows very clearly how you get to an overall surplus of 4 .4 on revenue.

Got that? Absolutely.

Then you have in 2 .6 additional allocations to reserves listed.

On a very quick rule of thumb looking down the page, they come to about 26 .5 million.

And the 4 .4 is allocated to the general fund.

So where does the additional money come from that gets you to $26 .5 million if your surplus is only $4 .4 million?

I'm sure it's a really easy answer and I would have known the answer but I'd forgotten.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:26:13

So the additional reserve movements are included within that $4 .4 million, so the position that you see in table 2 that you've referred to

includes the effect of enacting those reserve transfers.

So what you're left with at the end is the 4 .4 million surplus,

which is then transferred to the general fund working balance.

So that's the presentation.

You don't see the split out of the detail within that table.

Right. Just again, for my stupidity over this side,

so there's a seriously large number of financial movements here.

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:26:40

You've got 26 .5 million being moved around.

When you add the numbers up on Figure 1, they all come to 4 .4.

Now, where are the various puts and takes that get you to the 26 .5?

Are they within the corporate and funding aspects or where?

Just on this side of the table, as members of the committee, how do we understand this?

Because obviously the portfolio puts and takes are get entirely, yeah?

Where do we identify the 26 .5?

Is that within the portfolios?

Is it within corporate or where?

It's a mixture of the two.

So a proportion of the reserve movements will be seen under the portfolio budgets, and it's

presented as net, so you can't see the detail of it within the table, and a proportion is

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:27:27

within the corporate as well.

What we've tried to do is to pull out what we're proposing to transfer, what has been

proposed to transfer within that section 2 .6, so you can see the absolute values of what's

been proposed to transfer to reserves.

But I take the point in terms of the ability for the committee to actually, to see through

where things are actually pulling through into the front of the accounts.

So, sorry to push the point, because I think it's quite useful just for everybody to understand this.

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:27:53

So, when you look at, for example, I'll take highways for example,

because it's something that some people have got a vague interest in transport.

Yeah, expenditure 91 .9, I think that's the original budget actually,

yeah, the budget was 91 .9, the expenditure is 89 .3, the income, the levels and so on.

Looking at that superficially, you'd assume that was the budget, that's what they spent, and that was the difference.

But actually behind the scenes, stop me if I'm wrong, there are all sorts of movements taking place that add up to around 26 .5.

Not just within highways obviously.

So how do we know for example what was actually spent within the highways department on all of the roads, bridges, highways, culverts, etc.

if all of this movement has taken place behind the scenes?

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:28:54

It's a fair challenge, Councillor Tert, so we have amalgamated everything in the way

that this is presented. I think from this report at the moment, the best way you can

do that is to have a look at section 2 .6 and look at the breakdown that's provided there,

which I understand doesn't go down to,

it doesn't go down to the individual portfolio level.

So we'll take what you said away

in terms of presentation for future reports.

I think that's what I can offer you at the moment.

Are we satisfied, Councillor Ted?

I think you know the answer to that one.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:29:22

I completely understand,

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:29:24

because I've dealt with these historically.

I completely understand the presentation,

but what puzzles me is the size of the movements here

are dramatically different from what I've seen in the past.

and I'm just concerned, for example, when I have to answer residents' questions about, for example, road repairs and things like this,

I'm assuming that the budget for road repairs, not capital, road repairs, is still the same as it was,

and if it's underspent, it's been underspent by a little bit, but actually behind the scenes, there could have been very large movements in and out

that we're not aware of. And I guess it's just in the interest of transparency and clarity

that this committee actually has some visibility of these movements, where that money comes

from and where it goes to. Fiona?

So just to respond on that, so where we have large variances from budget or indeed any

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:30:17

sort of significant variances from budget, we pull that out in the narrative of this

report, so that's how we communicate to yourselves and to residents as well, where we've budgeted

plan for a particular level of expenditure and our out -term position has been different,

we would include that within the narrative. So we would flag that in the way that we flag

pressures, for example, in children's services. Thank you, Fiona. Let's move on to Councillor

Townsend, who's been waiting patiently. Thank you.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:30:40

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 1:30:43

Thank you, Chairman. I wanted to ask about the effects of beginning to clear the EHCP

backlog because the report identifies at least two impacts. One is that the cost on home

school transport has been lower than expected and the other is that we

obviously aren't having to pay for as many EHCP packages. Councillor Jackson's

update in council yesterday highlighted that we are now clearing about five

times as many sorry we are now issuing about five times as many EHCPs as we

were last year. So how are we preparing for that exponential expenditure on

what are the assumptions that we're putting into place and what are the forecasts on that?

Because we've obviously invested a lot in trying to clear this backlog, but how prepared

are we for the upshot of that?

Thank you for the question, Councillor Townsend.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:31:42

So as part of the planning for the current year budget, so for 26 -27, as part of the

MTFP process that we went through back in February, we've undertaken our modelling in

in terms of how we are getting through EHCPs,

what the knock -on impact of that is going to be in terms of

services such as home -to -school transport.

And that's been factored into the financial plans that have

been put in place.

Clearly those are being very closely monitored,

given the out -term position for last year,

where we currently find ourselves and what we know about,

you know, the demand for services for our children and

young people that's coming through the door.

So it's all kept very closely monitored,

but it has been built into our financial plans and will

continue to be reviewed and looked at as we go through.

Thank you, Fiona.

Councillor Townsend, satisfying?

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:32:22

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 1:32:27

I think so. I suppose it's just, it's very difficult to anticipate how quickly our investment

in the additional educational psychologist, for example, is going to kick in. I'm wondering

what the assumptions are you've made. Do we have targets that you're working towards in

of how many EHCPs we will have issued by the end of this year, for example, because that

seems like it has quite a huge impact on our financial stability.

So the kind of detail that you're referring to, I believe, is part of the subject to reports

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:32:59

that go through to the Education Select Committee, so I think that is discussed in quite a lot

of detail there, to my knowledge. I mean, certainly we can try to make aspects of that

through the future reports that come through to this committee, so you're cited on the

committee I do actually sit on that committee and we we talk about the

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 1:33:18

detail but we don't see the numbers behind it so I'm trying to kind of join

up the dots here so it would be good perhaps if we if those numbers can go to

that committee or we'll go somewhere for us to see we'll take that away make sure

that you enough is happening thank you thank you

Councillor Schafer

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:33:36

Thank you, I would like to add my

Cllr Anja Schaefer - 1:33:39

Concerns

Questions raised to the to those raised by councillor Ted and councillor Townsend

There seems to be that as a committee

we could do with more detailed information of

of where money comes from, where money goes to.

And I've seen this before,

that this information doesn't necessarily

always come through to the select committees.

It is important for councillors to understand

not just the overall figure,

and not just the ones that you choose to highlight to us.

Not that we have any, that I have any concerns that you're trying to hide things from us.

That is not what I'm implying here, but our job is to look at these figures and we need to understand the detail behind them.

Not every five pounds that go one way or the other, obviously, but bigger sums.

I have a question on the pressures on children's services.

That was my real question, the question that I meant to ask.

So residential placement numbers reported as significantly above budget

assumptions and therefore the question arises how realistic our budget

assumptions for 26, 27 and beyond and we have made investment in the council's

children's homes, which I am still very happy that we've done that and I still

think that's a very good thing. It happened there has been foster care

initiatives. All of those were partly obviously in order to improve the

outcome for children. They were also meant to result in savings. So could I

have a little bit more detail or an update on what the evidence is that the

savings are coming through and when we might expect or to what extent we might expect them

to reduce the pressures on children's services budgets.

Thank you. Can I just tag on to the back of that question from Councillor Shafir? I'm

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:36:02

quite interested in finding out the increase of the budget, how much of it came from increased

volume of children, or is it an increase in unit price of, you know, is it because the

number of children we're helping have increased, or is it just cost that's gone up? Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Shafer. So I'll try and take each of your questions in turn. I

Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources - 1:36:30

think your first question was around sort of the transparency for committee in terms

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:36:32

of the sources of funding and where money is going to and from. So we hope to try and

We're trying to address that as part of the budget inquiry process that we go through,

so that happens in January, as you'll be familiar with.

And we go into quite a lot of detail, I think, there in terms of where funding is coming

from on a portfolio -by -portfolio basis.

So that's, I think, the way in which we try to address that request for further information.

So I'll let you come back if you have any comments on that, but I would say that's my

first response on that particular point.

Yeah, I know, I just want to add on that, I think as Fiona has said in response to Councillor

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:37:11

Tett, that we acknowledge there could be some more work done on the presentation and that

will be looked at.

But I think within the budget scrutiny process, that's where a lot of the information is.

And I can't really add much more to Fiona, well Sarah can.

Oh, well I was just going to add, so there are pre -meetings before the budget inquiry

Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources - 1:37:30

process where you have a lot of information is provided because we know that this is really

complicated in terms of the questions about volume and unit costs.

And so that is where you will be run through assumptions and explanations so that you're

able to go into the formal public inquiry process fully informed to be able to ask the

detailed questions that you want to.

So there is that opportunity through that series of briefings on those large spend areas.

And I'll just quickly on the second part regarding children's services and particularly

how realistic is the figure.

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:38:08

I mean, so when we have the budget process, as said, we go through a very, very deep dive

the officers, the amount of information they're putting in to get to that stage.

But this is why we have the budget out there.

So we can keep on track and we can see that the figure is being done.

That is why we monitor this.

this is how we, in answer to your question,

how we cheque the figure is realistic,

by having the out -turn process.

And Fiona, I mean, particularly on the follow -up question

on how much comes from children and unit price,

I don't know if you have that to hand or not.

I'm afraid I don't have that detail to hand,

but we can get that for you.

But it is, I can say, in general terms, as you might expect,

it's a mixture of cost and volume.

But we can say, I'll take that as an action,

a way to get that breakdown for you.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:38:54

I think there was one sort of final question or a final point around when we'll start to

see or when we'll see an impact of the savings relating to children's homes.

Those are already coming through in the budgets, but I think the other point is that demand

is still increasing.

We've got complex cases which are high cost for our high -need young people, and those

have an impact as well on the financial position.

So the benefit is coming through, and you'll start to see that in the financial monitoring

reports that come through for 26, 27, first of which is due in the next month or so. So

there will be an opportunity for you to see what the impact is as we go through. Robert?

Just to add to that, in answer to when will we start seeing it come through, as I mentioned

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:39:35

in my opening statement, we are already seeing this. As I mentioned, yes, there is an adverse

variance of 5 .2 at the end of the year, but at quarter one, we are at 4 million. And the

fact that we have been able to keep it within that level is through the work. So the impact

That is already being seen but as Fiona has said we will start to see more of that coming

on.

Thank you.

Councillor Daley.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:40:00

Thank you, chair.

I have got a couple of questions.

Cllr Christine Adali - 1:40:08

On page 23 where the reserves are listed, the one of income from the energy waste litigation,

I was surprised to see that that goes to leisure because usually if you get a windfall within

a department, you keep it within the department and given the pressures within climate change

environment these days, I thought it might be wise to keep it within that department

or was there a specific pressure on leisure that you know coming down the line?

And then I've got a couple more.

Very small ones.

I can ask everything in one go.

I think it's better if you ask it all in one go.

And then it's a silly one.

It's purely understanding.

On page 28, I just did not know what that related to.

You referred to easement for national grid infrastructure and Uxbridge Moor and 638 Frog

Moor.

I just haven't come across it.

So just curious what that was.

And then lastly, a general observation by drilling down per portfolio in the explanation

in literally most portfolios, vacancies were quoted for the positive out turns, which worries

me a little bit.

How is the staff coping with staff pressures?

Are you able to fill those vacancies?

Is there a short term thing, a long term thing?

And also the only one that had a trend the other way was children's education where the

staff costs were higher. Is that due to agency requirements because of the vacancies or how

just a general comment on staff well being basically and how is the recruitment situation

going? Thank you.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:42:03

So, just in respect of the energy from waste and the mention of leisure in the context

of energy from waste, so the proposal is that funding has been transferred to reserves.

There is an expectation that that could be utilised to support leisure based activity

in the future.

However, that is all subject to development of a business case, taking it to the minimum

term financial planning process, scrutiny from budget scrutiny.

So there would be a process to go through.

So it's not earmarked against a specific project, but rather an expected requirement around

leisure use going forward.

But as I say, subject to the normal governance processes of the Council.

In terms of the mention of the easements, so we talked, I think we've touched on capital

receipts on a number of occasions.

So these are forms of capital receipts that came into the organisation during 25 -26.

An easement relates to a permission to go through council land in order to access and

to access electricity.

So I hope that sort of makes sense.

So we have a piece of land where we were able to generate a capital receipt in respect of

an easement.

And also in terms of the Frogmore site, I believe that's a small retail site within

within the county where we're again able to generate a capital receipt.

I might just pass to the Chair's discretion and my part to Robert

if there's anything further you wanted to say on those.

Well, no, I was going to answer the easement point where you've done that.

All right.

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:43:28

Thank you.

Shall I answer the point about staff wellbeing?

Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources - 1:43:35

So, actually, in many ways it neatly takes us onto the next part of the agenda,

but in terms of staff wellbeing,

What you'll see is staff sickness absences going down consistently, so we're down to

7 .81 days per FTE, which is well below the private sector and public sector benchmarks

that we've got within the report.

Voluntary turnover is below our threshold levels, and we will be doing a staff survey

in terms, and that will measure engagement and so on to see where we are on that.

The last one that we did about a year ago showed positive engagement.

And recruitment, you know, we are a big organisation.

We do continue to recruit.

There are challenging areas, so for example social workers, but on the other hand we are

still able to recruit in.

So there isn't, we don't have a recruitment problem.

Thank you.

Councillor Malmina.

Thank you.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:44:44

I'm going to thank Councillor Thet and Councillor Paul because I went through all these tables

and I could not really understand them so certainly I emphasise the point of presentation.

It would be helpful to have the figures laid out clearly for a non -specialist audience.

And because I disclosed my ignorance on these matters, I'm going to ask a very general question.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the message I take from this is that we had a bumper crop,

that we had a good year because we had a mutually high number of one -off items.

We had, you know, good cash balance because interest rate didn't fall as fast as we were

expecting.

We made savings because programmes were phased or non -delivered.

And as Councillor Townsend mentioned in her question, you know, there are savings related

to other social care, transport, education that have no materialised. So my question is how

sustainable is the financial situation? Very general. And how much are these good news masking

future problems down the line, particularly in areas like adult social care and transport,

which we know that, you know, there's bad news coming ahead.

It's a very general question.

Well, thank you for the question.

And in answer, I mean, fairly the point, Lance, I mean, yes,

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:46:42

we were lucky that we had some one -off factors,

but I do not want to hide the fact that the vast majority for

why we are here is because of the strong work being done by

the team and the strong decisions made to get us into this position.

And again, he's already asked this question, so I don't know if it's irrelevant, the

strong foundations we've been left by the previous administration.

And when you say it's papering over the cracks or words to along to those, that is

not the case, that we are very much taking a look at once again, this is why we have

an out -turn process, so we can cheque this, we can monitor and go into the work, that

There is no papering over of anything at all.

I mean, Fiona, if you want to use some stronger words on that.

So in terms of the out -term position, I think we've been quite – I hope we've been

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:47:37

quite clear in the report of the one -off nature of these benefits.

So really clear that there isn't an expectation that this will be a recurrent situation going

forward.

We will test that, of course, through the development of the next medium -term financial

plan.

but we are very much viewing these as a one -off benefit, hence the proposals to transfer those

one -off benefits through to reserves.

And that's very much been the approach.

I'd say for the current medium -term financial plan, so the current financial year and two

years hence, we've gone through a really rigorous process to sort of set a balanced

budget, and that's been subject to scrutiny and rigour from all types of sources, including

many committee members as well.

So we have a balanced plan.

There is risk in it, and we can see there's risk in the world that we live in at the moment

in terms of rising costs and so on, and we will do our best to manage that.

But we are not relying on the fact that we've done—we've had a sort of sound financial

performance in 25, 26 to actually mean that, you know, we can just rest on our laurels

going forward.

We have to be very prudent, very careful in terms of the way that we're managing our

budgets.

So I think that's my response to you, is that we're not resting on our laurels.

We're very mindful of the risks that are inherent within our financial position.

Thank You council country

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:48:50

Yeah, thank you. Um, so there are several things that I welcome within this I

Cllr Anna Crabtree - 1:48:55

Found appendix one to be very helpful in addressing some of the questions that I think my fellow councillors have raised about the breakdown

Area by area

There's some excellent things that been already mentioned such as the spend on Marlowe bridge and the savings on the new children's homes

Which are definitely welcomed

Hunting around for the reserves movement that Councillor Tett mentioned took me to page

45 of our PDF, which is the corporate and funding reserve breakdown within Appendix

1, where I was interested in the Treasury management details.

So it was mentioned in the main report that there was a gain of over £9 million on our

Treasury management return compared to what we'd budgeted.

And so I went to see what the original budget had been.

And I was surprised that we're actually looking at over approximately a 200 % gain on our budgeted

figure, which seemed surprisingly large to me.

So I just wondered if there were any lessons we should be taking away from this process

about how we forecast our Treasury returns and whether we can try and aim for increased

accuracy going forward.

Thank you.

Thank you for that question.

And, I mean, that is a question which has been raised multiple times in this room.

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:50:06

I know Councillor Tett, Councillor Wilson also raised it a number of times.

and in audit committee, where particularly it answers the question of how can we do the

lessons learned.

We have the Treasury management strategy, which goes before the audit committee, which

looks into this and the overall strategy of how we do this.

There's always the argument that you're being too conservative, but how can you predict

things like Donald Trump and other things, unexpected factors which have had a huge impact

And on—you could all say as a counterpart that next year, who knows, there may be decisions

that the prediction may be more than it is.

It is why we're going on this level is just in case we do have these factors so that we

are not—that we are doing this in a prudent way.

I think prudency I think is the key word here, isn't it, Fiona?

Yes, thank you, Councillor Carrington.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:51:08

And so absolutely, we take a prudent approach to budgeting income from Treasury management

because of the volatility that's inherent within Treasury management, within investment

returns.

Yes, we have had a particularly positive result this year, and we will of course take that

into account in terms of planning for future financial periods.

But I think it remains a sensible approach, I think, in terms of actually putting together

the Council's financial plans.

I wouldn't want to see us as an organisation placing too much reliance on treasury management

treasury management income going forward.

I think it becomes there's risk inherent in that.

So the point about accurate sort of forecasting is taken on board.

We'll make sure that you know we are doing the due diligence and that to enhance our

processes.

But I think I'm confident in the way that we approach our treasury management budgeting

at the moment I feel like it's the right one for the organisation.

Thank you.

Councillor Laius.

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:52:02

So just add on that just with the treasury mate Treasury management strategy this goes to the Audit Committee every year

So I am pretty certain the committee and the chairman will have views on it and will make further suggestions

And I think this is where you tell me you sit on the committee as well now

Cllr Anna Crabtree - 1:52:19

Well, I do now but I didn't previously so that might explain them as much in information. Thank you. Thank you councillor you

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:52:22

Thank you page 28 this one

clarification about

Cllr Mohammed Ayub - 1:52:25

Is that still money being collected from all over Buckinghamshire?

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:52:39

So this income relates to the south because obviously there's the recent decision regarding

the north.

I mean, Fiona, I think anything further to add?

No, that's correct.

Thank you.

I've got a question, probably last question really.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:52:53

Is that I picked up that we spent or underspent £18 million in relation to capital funding.

What projects, what important projects were delayed and what effect would these projects

have on residents?

So this is from a number of factors, because bear in mind these projects, a lot of them,

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:53:11

particularly CELA, are huge – I'm not saying CELA, but I mean as an example, are

huge infrastructure projects where there are a vast amount of time, a number of resources,

and with all those things, there will always try – it's like trying to get a house

built on your house.

I think the old saying is whatever they quote you and whatever they say, timelines, times

it – no, add by a third.

But the one in particular, Denmark Street, so we pushed that into this year with the

delivery there, but it's mainly on the infrastructure side, isn't it?

Sorry, yes, Councillor Carrington is correct. It's largely on our infrastructure projects.

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:53:57

Thank you. And that goes – and you touched upon my follow -up question, which is, given

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:54:01

it's delayed, are we going to see increased cost because of that? And how does that impact

the next round of budgeting? No, we will not, because it's a shame Amy

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:54:13

isn't here but through the property construction team they through the the

ribber process they have endless negotiation with the construction team

to make certain that the the costs are kept within the boundary and that there

is no expansion so this as Amy explained earlier there is a very very constant

oversight and overview through through the property construction team to make

certain that these are delivered within and ideally under budget and

Particularly on time so that the impact on residents

There isn't an impact. Thank you. That's reassuring to hear

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:54:50

Just one final question

Council poll and because I'm conscious that Sarah has to leave it for and trying to get on to the next agenda

I do to what you said just so we have no cost plus contracts

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:55:03

Sorry, but you might have to explain to

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:55:08

So like HS2 is a cost plus percentage contract.

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:55:12

So whatever the cost is, whatever the cost,

plus a percentage, that is what they're paid.

We don't have any of those, is that correct?

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:55:21

I'd need to confirm, sorry, I can't give you confirmation.

I'll take the question away.

Sorry, it was a bit of a cheeky question,

but I think it's a horrible arrangement.

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:55:28

Thank you.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:55:32

I think that nicely wraps up item seven, basically.

I think the committee, I think we all welcome the favourable outcome here.

But I think the one thing to take away is that I think we're quite concerned about the

DSG exposure and what happens.

I think I noted it earlier, and I think members are content that we ask the officers in Cabot

to come back to us on what the exposure or what the updates are in relation to the DSG

and the local SEND programme or reform is.

So can we have that minuted?

If there's nothing else, we'll move on to item 8, performance monitoring.

I'm conscious that Sarah said she's got to leave at 4 o 'clock, so.

8 Performance Monitoring Q4

I'm very conscious of that fact.

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:56:16

I will save my opening blurb and hand straight over to Sarah if there's anything you want

to add or go straight into questions.

Members happy with that?

Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources - 1:56:25

All right.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:56:28

Questions for the officers and cabinet member?

Councilman Townsend.

Thank you.

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 1:56:39

On the green performance indicators, quite a lot of them were quite high above our targets.

When are our targets going to be reviewed and raised so that we are aspiring to be as

good as possible on those indicators?

Thank you for the question.

And the answer to that is last night.

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:57:04

So the corporate plan with the CPIs, which – so this is the last time you'll be looking

at KPIs.

You're now going to be looking at CPIs, corporate performance indicators, and that

is a comment which has been made many a time around this table, around the Cabinet table,

that some of them need to be more ambitious and I like to think with the

CPIs you'll see that so when we next meet when you next see when you see the

first CPIs you hopefully will be able to judge the answer is yes. Thank you.

Councillor Momina.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:57:41

Yes, thank you.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 1:57:45

With regards to the voluntary staff turnover, what assessment has been made of whether this

indicates high employee satisfaction as the report states or other factors such as, you

know, people not being able to progress across the organisation.

And what you think the impact of this low voluntary turnover is, because in any large

organisation, you know, you need healthy turnover of staff to ensure, you know, new ideas, organisational

agility, et cetera, et cetera.

And what actions are planned to ensure that turnovers remain remains at a decent level?

Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources - 1:58:51

Thank you for the question. So you're absolutely right, organisations do need turnover.

For me, in an organisation such as the Council, I think turnover at this level is fine.

I wouldn't personally want to see it to go much lower than this because, as you say,

the injection of new ideas and innovation, it's really helpful to bring that in.

That said, we have really good staff engagement and people are fantastic in terms of the way

that they apply themselves to, um, new initiatives, to, um,

problems to be solved and so on. So they're, people are very, very engaged.

They're very aligned with the core purpose of the, of the council.

And you see that in the, in the staff survey,

as I say the new staff survey that we've got that will go out in the autumn,

we'll be able to bring the results back to this committee.

And I'm very hopeful that that, um,

that message will continue, uh, in terms of, uh, staff alignment.

You know, we also have to be cognizant that it is, as the report says, it isn't a mobile

labour market out there at the moment.

So there will be some times when actually there is a lot of jobs and people do leave

for other opportunities, but at the moment that is not the case, the opportunities aren't

there.

But we also make sure that we have things like career -graded roles within the Council

so that allows progression through.

We do work in terms of apprenticeships, so we'll bring people as an entry -level apprenticeship,

so within finance, for example, within IT.

We have – we develop our own, particularly in those sort of scare skills areas.

So we are – we're very creative in the way that we manage careers within the council,

and I think you see that within the – as I say, within that staff engagement metric.

Thank you.

Councillors, any other questions?

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:00:49

Councilman May.

Just one more question and I hope it's not a very well -formed question.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 2:01:00

One thing that jumped out at me by reading the report and I can't pinpoint where exactly

it is but in several areas what jumped out at me is a new it's a high number of vacancies

Is that an issue?

I don't think we've got anything within the report about a high number of vacancies.

No, no, that doesn't specifically say it's a high number of vacancies, but it is mentioned

Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources - 2:01:31

in different areas of the report that, for example, savings were made because of vacancies.

Cllr Maru Mormina - 2:01:36

So, yes, I can explain that.

Sarah Murphy-Brookman - Corporate Director for Resources - 2:01:42

So everything that Fiona has explained in terms of our budgeting process and the savings

that need to be made, so if you take it from within resources within my directorate, in

order to deliver our savings at the 1st of April this budget year, meant that in the

run up to that, we would be holding vacancies as people left because then we were able to

delete those posts to make the saving. Now, we'll reorganise around that in a methodical

way to ensure that services continue. But what that means is that we don't have to

make redundancy payments, and so it's a much more cost -effective way for the Council

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:02:30

to manage to deliver those savings. Thank you. If there are no other questions

from Councillors. We can close item eight. Yeah. Thank you.

9 Work Programme

Moving swiftly on to item agenda item number nine. This is the work programme that I have

put together with officers, which is, you know, page 69, 70 and 71 of your agenda pack.

We've put this together, really, to ensure that the Committee directs its sort of limited

time that we have in the next sort of 12 months to matters, you know, that we think, while

looking at what the previous Committee did, you know, is important to this Council, involving

material financial exposure, delivery risks, or a genuine need for us to challenge the

Cabinet and officers on.

Are there any views or comments from Councillors in relation to this councillor Townsend?

Thanks. Are we expecting to see the samp that we referred to earlier come on to our work plan?

As said you're in the session that

Cllr Larisa Townsend - 2:03:41

Cllr Robert Carington - 2:03:44

Absolutely, and I was actually going to put a suggestion that you look at it, but you beat me to it. So well done

Thank you

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:03:51

fine time to look at this and

as soon as possible I guess is it, is there urgency to it?

Cllr Robert Carington - 2:03:59

Well as I said, cabinet's going to be looking at it on the,

I think it was on the 29th July I said,

so it, depending on if, obviously, if cabinet approves it,

then it will go, but I don't know if you want to look

at it immediately or give it six months to run,

I mean I'll obviously leave it to you when you would,

when would you feel would be the best time to view it,

give it time to sink in see if it's working or

What do counsellors think we're thinking probably in the next two to three months

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:04:32

Councillor Paul

Yeah, I think think chairman I think we are either

Have an initial look

Cllr Chris Poll - 2:04:44

at the 8th of October meeting or we wait

For six months which then takes us to the April meeting. The others are rather busy

Personally I think it might be better to

Let it run for six months and then ask the question, you know

What were the original intentions and how does it panned out? I think that would be the most useful use of everybody's time

councillor crap tree

My feeling is that I think it's gonna be key to our understanding of the budget scrutiny process in January

Cllr Anna Crabtree - 2:05:17

So I don't know whether if we leave it until April,

we may find that we've already had to think about it

before that stage.

So is there any point in us looking at it before then?

I'm not sure.

Squeezing it into January obviously will be difficult

when everything else is so busy.

So I think I'd probably rather have some understanding

of it before then even though it won't have had chance

to really bed in and show many results yet.

Any other councillors have any views?

Councillor Ted.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:05:43

Yeah, I wasn't gonna give one on this,

But I have to say I've been slightly persuaded

Cllr Martin Tett - 2:05:48

about the budget argument, because what

I'm slightly concerned about is when we get to the scrutiny,

the answer to any question on property is, ah,

it's in the sand.

And we will go, where's the sand?

And we haven't read it, and we haven't actually

had a chance to dive into it and understand it.

So I'm just slightly concerned about kicking it

into the long grass.

I just feel that if we have a first look at it,

I think you suggested two to three months,

something like that.

So we understand it and I've had a chance to test it out, make sure we understand it

ahead of the budget scrutiny.

That seems to be the better option to me.

I mean that's what the Vice Chairman has also given his wisdom on.

Are we in agreement?

We'll have it before budget in the next two, three months?

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:06:30

Always pleased to agree with the wisdom of the Vice Chairman.

Thank you.

Can we have that?

I just want to add the caveat.

Obviously it's got to pass cabinet first.

Cllr Robert Carington - 2:06:41

Just have that covered out, subject to it.

We're not expecting any surprises, are we?

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:06:46

Thank you, Councillor Townsend, for that.

Any other comments on this?

Oh, Councillor Mormino.

It's a small one.

I thought we had discussed at some point having something around procurement in the

Cllr Maru Mormina - 2:07:06

work programme.

Well, I wasn't on this committee before, but –

Just to add some touch to that, the procurement is looked at by the Audit Committee.

Cllr Robert Carington - 2:07:18

I know they have a look at that, so I think that's probably why it's not on the forward

plan.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay.

Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:07:28

Well, if there's nothing else, wow, that really takes us on to agenda number 10, which

10 Date and time of the next meeting

The next date of this next meeting of this committee will be 8 October at 2 p .m.

right well

Therefore this concludes formal business. Thank you everyone here for attending your input and for residents watching on a webcast

Thank you. Thank you

Cllr Christine Adali

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Mohammed Ayub

Conservative

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Cllr Steven Broadbent

Conservative

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Cllr Robert Carington

Conservative

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Cllr Anna Crabtree

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Dev Dhillon

Conservative

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Cllr Andy Huxley

Conservative

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Cllr Maru Mormina

Green Party

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Cllr Jackson Ng

Conservative

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Cllr Chris Poll

Conservative

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Cllr Anja Schaefer

Liberal Democrats

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Cllr Martin Tett

Conservative

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Cllr Larisa Townsend

Independent

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Finance & Resources Select CommitteeThursday, 16th July 2026 at 2:00pm

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:00:00

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:00:11

1 Appointment of Vice-Chairman

2 Apologies for absence / Changes in membership

Elizabeth Wheaton - Principal Scrutiny Officer - 0:01:22

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:01:37

3 Declarations of Interest

4 Minutes

5 Public Questions

6 Overview of the Council's Approach to Managing Property & Capital Assets

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:04:00

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:10:24

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:11:05

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:12:10

Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets - 0:14:06

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:14:57

Cllr Anna Crabtree - 0:15:07

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:15:41

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:17:28

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:17:38

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 0:18:02

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:18:44

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:20:27

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:23:12

Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets - 0:24:02

Cllr Martin Tett - 0:25:01

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:25:56

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:26:37

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:28:00

Cllr Christine Adali - 0:28:23

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:29:05

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:30:01

Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:30:04

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:31:34

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:35:36

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:37:45

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:38:03

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:39:35

Cllr Anja Schaefer - 0:39:38

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:40:38

Cllr Andy Huxley - 0:41:32

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:42:32

Cllr Chris Poll - 0:45:01

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:46:43

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 0:50:07

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:51:01

Cllr Maru Mormina - 0:51:04

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:52:52

Amy Bridgford - Service Director for Corporate Property & Assets - 0:54:13

Cllr Jackson Ng - 0:54:57

7 Budget Outturn 2025-26

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:55:26

Cllr Robert Carington - 0:55:40

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:05:57

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:07:38

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:11:51

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:12:30

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:15:20

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:15:25

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:15:41

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:15:50

Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:17:06

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:19:12

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:20:43

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:20:59

Cllr Chris Poll - 1:21:29

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:21:48

Cllr Dev Dhillon - 1:21:53

Cllr Robert Carington - 1:23:11

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:24:11

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:24:46

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:24:49

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:26:13

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:26:40

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:27:27

Cllr Martin Tett - 1:27:53

Fiona Jump - Deputy Chief Finance Officer - 1:28:54

Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:29:22

Finance & Resources Select Committee
Thursday, 16th July 2026 at 2:00pm