Agenda and decisions

Salford City Council - Record of Decision

I, Councillor David Lancaster, Lead Member for Environment and Community Safety, in exercise of the powers contained within the Council Constitution, do hereby approve the virement of £0.300m within the 2020/21 Place capital programme to finance additional costs for the replacement of waste and recycling containers.

The Reasons are – capital resource of £0.3m was assigned against Environment (Buile Hill Mansion) that will not be spent by March 2021. As a result, available capital is to be used to finance additional costs for the replacement of waste and recycling containers up to March 2021.  (The capital provision for Buille Hill will be addressed in the 2021/22 Capital Budget)

Options considered and rejected were –

Alternative funding or charging structure – There is no revenue budget available to meet the additional funding requirement and the charging of recycling bins was considered but rejected.

No replacement waste containers provided- Failure to be able to provide waste containers would mean inability to offer suitable waste and recycling services to residents and businesses within the city.

Assessment of risk –

Low: If the virement is not agreed, and on the basis replacement containers are provided, there will be an overspend on the budget. 

High: If the virement is not agreed, and on the basis replacement containers are not provided, there will be an inability to offer suitable waste and recycling services to residents and businesses which will result in a reduction in recycling rates and an increase in disposal costs. 

The source of funding is – 2020/21 Place capital programme

Legal Advice obtained  Submitted by: Tony Hatton, Principal Solicitor, tel. 219 6323

As set out in the Council’s Constitution, each directorate is allocated a budget amount as their share of the annual revenue budget approved by Council, and capital virements (movement of budgets between approved capital schemes) are permitted subject to the approvals being made by authorised persons as set out in section 7.4 of the Budget and Policy Framework Procedure Rules. 

For a virement of the amount requested, it would appear that section 7.4 (b) applies and the approval of lead member for financial and support services in consultation with the Chief Finance Officer is required. Section 7.4 reads as follows:

The person set out below shall be entitled to vire across budget heads or budget amounts as follows:

a)    a Chief Officer may vire between budget heads under their control and

within their directorates £150,000 in any financial year.

b)    the Member(s) of the Cabinet for a relevant service area(s) may, with the

approval of the relevant Lead Member, vire between budget heads within their control sums of £150,000 and over, up to £350,000 in any financial year

c)    the City Mayor may vire sums up to £1,000,000 between the budget

amounts of different directorates in any financial year.

d)    the Chief Finance officer shall be responsible for authorising all

virements from the central inflation and contingency provision to other service budgets.

e)  ...  view the full decision text for item 3a

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