To approve proposed changes to earmarked reserves following the annual review.

Earmarked reserves are established to hold revenue balances to fund future year commitments over and above the annual budget requirement. They generally arise where funding exceedsexpenditure, usually due to the timing of receipts being ahead of incurring expenditure. As amatter of good practice a review is undertaken each year to establish the continued need forreserves held for earmarked purposes to ensure resources can be used to best effect whilstmaintaining a prudent level of reserves to meet future anticipated commitments.

The annual review has highlighted the proposed movement of £7.5m of reserve funding from two reserves held into alternative reserves, summarised below-

 Reduction of the sparsity reserve (£6.4m)

 Part utilisation of the minimum revenue provision reserve (£1.1m)

 Severe weather fund, proposed reserve addition of £1.4m

 Children’s wellbeing structural change, new reserve of £1.6m

 Adults and wellbeing provision of care cost, new reserve of £0.5m

 Road remedial works, £2.8m

 Living Wage, new reserve of £0.5m

 Health and wellbeing new reserve of £0.5m

 Legal services demand, new reserve £0.2m