Agenda item

To consider a report by Councillor Gwyneth Ellis, Lead Member for Finance, Performance and Strategic Assets (copy enclosed) detailing the principles for funding capital schemes and seeking Cabinet’s support of projects identified for inclusion in the 2025/26 Capital Plan and recommendation to full Council.

RESOLVED that Cabinet –

(a)      approves the principles for funding capital schemes set out within the report, and

(b)      supports the projects shown in Appendix 2 to the report for inclusion in the 2025/26 Capital Plan and recommends accordingly to full Council.

Councillor Gwyneth Ellis presented the report seeking Cabinet’s support of projects identified for inclusion in the 2025/26 Capital Plan, as recommended by the Capital Scrutiny Group, for submission to full Council for consideration and approval.

Cabinet was reminded of the agreed principles for funding capital schemes which had been set out in the report in response to the financial challenges facing the Council, limited capital resources, and need to limit the impact of the Capital Plan on the revenue budget.  Details of the work of the Capital Scrutiny Group (CSG) in reviewing the allocations presented by services in line with the agreed principles and reducing the block allocations towards the level of capital funding received from the Welsh Government (which at that time was assumed to be the same as 2024/25, £6.185m) were provided together with the CSG’s recommendations and reasons for supporting specific projects amounting to £7.227m (reduced from £8.362m in 2024/25).  The subsequent available capital funding announced by the Welsh Government was £760k higher than assumed and it was recommended that additional funding be allocated as additional contingency pending further information from the Welsh Government on additional capital grants available in 2025/26.  This would assist in deciding how best to allocate the additional funding.

The Lead Member, Head of Finance and Audit along with Cabinet thanked the CSG and all those involved in that process for the hard work undertaken.

Main areas of debate focused on the following –

·       the reasoning behind the approach to allocate the additional capital funding from the Welsh Government as additional contingency was further discussed and Cabinet noted that since the provisional settlement had been announced a capital grant had already been received for school maintenance work which would supplement that block allocation and it was anticipated that further capital grants for specific purposes such as highways works would also be forthcoming.  Given there was no restriction on spend of the additional capital funding in the provisional settlement, it was recommended that further detail be awaited on the specific capital grants available in 2025/26 to better inform future capital spend allocations for the remaining funding; the position would be closely monitored

·       as a member of the CSG, Councillor Gareth Sandilands welcomed the Council’s significant capital investment in its assets, and he raised questions regarding the transformational projects and capital investment.  It was clarified that the Budget and Transformation Board would be considering projects for transformation and if those projects required capital, they would also be considered by the CSG; it was important to ensure the Council invested carefully and proportionally in transformational projects in order to deliver for residents.  However, it was noted that most of the Council’s capital spend allocations related to business as usual matters such as maintenance work and adaptations

·       the report had referenced capital schemes that were one-off in nature and Councillor Bobby Feeley referred to the subsequent further investment required in the new waste service and sought assurances over future safeguards against that practice when dealing with transformational projects.  The Leader and Chief Executive highlighted that such projects were robustly challenged, highlighting the governance and scrutiny processes in place for dealing with capital transformational projects.  Whilst no capital project was without risk, arrangements had been put in place to mitigate and manage those risks.

RESOLVED that Cabinet –

(a)      approves the principles for funding capital schemes set out within the report, and

(b)      supports the projects shown in Appendix 2 to the report for inclusion in the 2025/26 Capital Plan and recommends accordingly to full Council.