Agenda item

The Leader presented the report which dealt with aspects of the Capital Programme, any new additions for Cabinet’s consideration and approval, progress made this year and the current position on the capital resources headroom and capital receipts.

The biggest change noted in the report is the programme.  Officers have been reviewing the deliverability of the programme and most of that work is now complete.  The current five year programme will take another two years to deliver and given its size and in some places, complexity, this is not too surprising.  Therefore, project spend has been re-phased over the new seven year timescale in line with estimates for when projects can be delivered.  The report confirmed projects have not been dropped – just reviewed to see when they can be delivered.

In the extra two years, capital spend had already been committed to:

a)    Finishing off the Education Band B programme.  This is therefore included in the new seven year timescale and the programme now includes the full £70m Band B school programme.

b)    NCC’s contribution to the Cardiff City Deal.  This is a long term commitment and Newport Council, like other authorities in the region, will be making contributions to this for many more years, even beyond the seven year timescale identified in the report.

As well as re-phasing existing projects, these two items have been added as they were already approved and need to be included in the report for completeness.  (Appendix A refers).

In terms of the programme spend, the report confirmed there was the usual relatively slow spend in the first half of the year which is forecast to accelerate in the second half of the year.  Good progress is being made on many projects within the programme.  In particular, the new service Hub, which opened on the 7^th November and which is a fantastic facility for residents in the east of the city. 

The report confirms progress on the high profile projects.

An update on the capital resources headroom was included in the report, there is some headroom in the programme but the demand for resources will always outweigh resources available.  The report confirmed the programme is already achieving close to £200m, there are a lot of projects ongoing and the city will benefit hugely from this spend and the services and facilities that arise from that.  Part of the headroom comes from capital receipts, and the report gave an update on this and the generation of receipts so far.

Councillor Jane Mudd expressed her gratitude to the Leader for her work with Welsh Government on securing the grant to facilitate the Commercial Street project, without the Leader’s intervention the project would not have been brought to fruition.

Likewise Councillor Gail Giles confirmed the Leader’s involvement at the start of the 21^st Century Schools Band B Programme; the Leader’s input giving the impetus to start the project and in setting the forward agenda.

The Leader commended the report to colleagues.  Cabinet was asked to:

i)              Note the majority of the re-phasing of the overall programme has been completed with the exception of finalising 21^st Century Schools Band B and Fleet replacement;

ii)             Note that the capital programme timescale has been increased from five years to seven years to accommodate the re-phasing of the original programme and for completeness, and includes other already approved projects which fall into those years;

iii)           Approve the additions to the Capital Programme requested in the report (Appendix A);

iv)           Note the available remaining capital resources (‘headroom’) until 2022/23;

v)            Note the capital expenditure forecast position as at September 2019;

vi)           Note the balance of and approve the allocation of in-year capital receipts.

Decision:

1.    Cabinet approved the changes to the Capital Programme and noted the monitoring position as set out in the report, including the use of capital receipts.

2.    Agreed to prioritise capital expenditure to maintain spend within the current affordability envelope.