Agenda item

The Council is asked to:-

(a)       Consider the comments of the City Mayor’s Recommendations for the Capital Programme 2020/21 to be published prior to the Budget Meeting and will be attached to the Council Script;

(b)       Consider the views of the Overview Select Committee meeting on 12 February 2020 will be submitted prior to the Council meeting and a copy will be attached to the Council Script;

The Council is recommended to:-

(a)       Approve the capital programme described in this report and summarised at Appendices Two to Four, subject to any amendments proposed by the City Mayor;

(b)       For those schemes designated immediate starts, delegate authority to the lead director to commit expenditure, subject to the normal requirements of contract procedure rules and finance procedure rules;

(c)        Delegate authority to the City Mayor to determine a plan of spending for each policy provision, and to commit expenditure up to the maximum available;

(d)       For the purposes of finance procedure rules:

•        Determine that service resources shall consist of service revenue contributions; HRA revenue contributions; and government grants/third party contributions ringfenced for specific purposes (but see below for the Local Growth Fund);

•        Designate the highways maintenance programme and transport improvement programme as programme areas, within which the director can reallocate resources to meet operational requirements.

(e)       As in previous years, delegate to the City Mayor:

•        Authority to increase any scheme in the programme, or add a new scheme to the programme, subject to a maximum of £10m corporate resources in each instance;

•        Authority to reduce or delete any capital programme provision, subject to a maximum of 20% of scheme value for “immediate starts”; and

•        Authority to transfer any “policy provision” to the “immediate starts” category.

(f)        In respect of the Local Growth Fund (LGF), (which the Council receives as the accountable body to the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership LLEP):-

•        Delegate to the City Mayor approval to accept the Government’s funding offer each year, and to add this to the capital programme;

•        Delegate to the Strategic Director, City Development and Neighbourhoods, in consultation with the Director of Finance, authority to allocate the funding to individual projects (in effect, implementing decisions of the LLEP);

•        Agree that City Council schemes funded by LGF can only commence after the City Mayor has given approval;

•        Delegate to the Director of Finance authority to reallocate LGF funding between projects to ensure the programme as a whole can be delivered; and

•        Note that City Council contributions to LGF projects will follow the normal rules described above.

(g)       Apply the rules in (f) above to any similar Government scheme that replaces LGF;

(h)       Delegate to directors, in consultation with the relevant deputy/assistant mayor, authority to incur expenditure in respect of policy provisions on design and other professional fees and preparatory studies, but not any other type of expenditure;

(i)        Approve the earmarked reserves transfer as detailed in paragraph 5.7, of this report; and

(j)         Approve the capital strategy as described at paragraph 8 and Appendix 5.

A report was considered which sought approval of a Capital Programme for the Council for the period 2020/21. Details were included within the report of the resources position and proposed projects. The report had been considered by the Overview Select Committee at its meeting on 12 February 2020 and a copy of the minutes were made available at the meeting and attached to these minutes.

Moved by the City Mayor, seconded by Councillor Cassidy and carried:

That Council:

1)    Thanks, the Overview Select Committee for their comments on our draft budget, which were attached to the script, made available at the meeting and attached to these minutes;

2)    Notes the comments made in the City Mayor’s formal Recommendation to Council Notice published on 18 February 2020 and attached at Appendix E to the script, made available at the meeting and attached to these minutes; and

3)    Approves the recommendations set out in section 3 of the report ‘Capital Programme 2020/21’ without amendment.