1.    INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.1     This is a regular update report on the financial position of the Estate, which enables the Committee to see how the various areas of activity are performing. The last few years have seen a number of significant financial pressures and issues, and it is important for the future of the Estate that these are addressed and monitored.

2.        CURRENT FINANCIAL POSITION

2.1     The table below summarises the position as at 28^th February 2019. Appendix 1 provides a more detailed breakdown of the figures.                                                                                                                            

2.1.1   Overall Summary Position:                                                  

The table above shows a positive variance of £36,307 for the Committee at the end of February. Comments on the individual service areas are as follows:

2.1.2      Cobtree Golf Course –          There are no issues to report at this stage.  Mytime have been invoiced for all four quarters for 2018/19, and these have all been paid.

2.1.3      Cobtree Manor Park – There are no new issues to report. Car park income continues to be high, which is off-setting some additional costs that have been incurred and previously reported this year.        

2.1.4      Capital costs of £25,159 have also been incurred for additional survey and testing work, and project management costs for the car park resurfacing works, as also previously advised. The loan agreement between the Trust and the Council is being finalised and will reflect the wish expressed by the Committee to repay the loan as soon as possible.

2.1.5      Kent Life - There are no issues to report at this stage. The variation to the contract with Planning Solutions to allow payment by instalments is being finalised and they will be invoiced accordingly.

2.1.6              The decision has been made for the proposed works to the Play Barn to be completed in January 2020.  Contractors have agreed to hold their prices until January 2020.  £10,794 will be required for these works in the 2019/2020 budget, and that is reflected in the figures shown in the next section of this report.

2.1.7      Café/Visitor Centre – Responsibility for running the facility passed to DAGT in mid-April, so the budgets reflect the short time that it continued to run as an in-house operation. DAGT have been invoiced for the rental payments that are due and these have been paid, but as previously reported the invoices for recharged staff costs remain in dispute and are therefore still unpaid.   

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­________________________________________________________________                                                               

3.           BUDGETS 2019/20                                                                                                       

3.1           The draft budgets were presented to the last meeting of the Committee, and the detailed figures are also shown as part of Appendix 1. They have now been reviewed and an updated summary of the revised figures is shown in the table below.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

3.2           There are two main changes from the figures presented previously. Firstly, the Manor Park budgets have been adjusted to reflect the new staff structure and associated savings that were agreed by the Committee at the last meeting, and secondly draft figures for the recharges from the Council to the Trust have now been included. These will be incorporated into the Service Level Agreement (SLA) that is being drafted. The intention is to bring this to the next full meeting of the Committee for further consideration.                                                                                                        

3.3           The proposed recharges are detailed at Appendix 2. Where appropriate officers were asked to provide an estimate of the time they spend annually dealing with Trust matters, and an hourly rate covering their salary (including national insurance and pensions) and overheads has been calculated. In some instances where the service is provided on an ad hoc basis it was decided that another approach would be more appropriate, and this is indicated where one has been used.                                                                                                                           

3.4           The recharges have been apportioned across the four service areas, mainly on the basis of turnover. The exceptions are Human Resources, ICT and Parking Services which have been allocated 100% to the park; and Procurement which has been apportioned on the basis of contract values.                                                                                                                

3.5           The intention is that the SLA will incorporate a mechanism that will allow for adjustments at the end of the financial year where actual time spent on Trust activities is significantly different from the estimated figure.                                       

4.        FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

4.1     Members will be aware of the ongoing recommendation from the external auditors that the Trust have its own financial management system separate to that of the Council. The system that was identified as being most suitable was the Sage accounting package. This section of the report provides an update on progress to date.                                       

4.2     The system has now been installed and implementation work has begun, however due to staff absence and resourcing issues within the finance team progress with that work has fallen behind and the system will not be in place for 1^st April 2019 as had been planned. The intention now is to continue to use the existing Agresso system until the Sage implementation is complete and then transfer all 2019/20 transactions that have arisen up to that point across to Sage.                                                                                                        

5.        PREFERRED OPTION AND REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

6.       NEXT STEPS: COMMUNICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECISION

6.1     Officers will continue to monitor the financial position and take appropriate action where necessary.

7.       CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS

8.        REPORT APPENDICES

The following documents are to be published with this report and form part of the report:

·         Appendix 1: Financial Position and Draft Budgets as at 28^th February 2019

·         Appendix 2: Draft Recharges for 2019/20

9.        BACKGROUND PAPERS

None.