Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to a report of the Director of Finance which provided the Select Committee with the forecast budget gap and the Administration’s budget proposals for 2019/20 together with forecast budget gap estimates for the period 2020/21 to 2023/24, having regard to the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement published on 13 December 2018.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Resources and the Director of Finance presented the report and addressed the enquiries of the Select Committee.

The report set out proposals for the Council’s Revenue Budget for 2019/20 and Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2019/20 to 2021/22. It advised Members of the key financial challenges and issues which would be faced by the Council over the forecast period and set out the Administration’s revenue budget proposals for 2019/20 together with updated budget gap estimates for the period 2020/21 to 2023/24.

The report highlighted policy announcements and implications which arose from the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget Statement and the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement. The report also detailed key budget adjustments and expenditure pressures which underpinned the forecasts that provided the backdrop for the Council’s Medium-Term Financial Strategy.

Based on the latest estimates, the budget reduction requirement for 2019/20 had increased from the previously reported figure of £17.986m to £22.696m. This increase was due to a range of changes to the estimates which ware set out in detail in Section 11 of the report. Section 12 of the report detailed the Administration’s budget reduction proposals. There were a total of 35 proposals delivering savings of £7.829m in 2019/20. If approved in full, these proposals further reduced the budget reduction requirement to £14.867m for 2019/20. Section 13 explained the approach to balancing the 2019/20 budget. In order to remove the requirement for further spending reductions, it was proposed to part-finance the 2019/20 budget by using the opportunities provided by the ability to use Capital Receipts to support spending on transformational projects up to a value of £3.000m and from an available Collection Fund Surplus of £2.269m. A number of specific and corporate reserves would be used to address the balance.

Approval of the proposals set out in this report in full by Budget Council would deliver a balanced revenue budget for 2019/20. The budget reduction requirement for subsequent years was forecast to be £22.883m for 2020/21, £10.889m for 2021/22, £6.859m for 2022/23 and £4.160m for 2023/24.

Members sought and received clarification on the change to the amount of business rates expected. They were advised that this anticipated the expected change in the retention scheme in 2020/2021.

The Select Committee examined each of the budget reduction proposals as follows:

The Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care and the Managing Director, Community Health and Social Care Services (DASS) were in attendance to address the enquiries of the Select Committee on the following items:

HAS-BR1-237 Day Care Services

A proposal to re-render the service to a different provider. There would not be a reduction in service to service users.

HAS-BR1-238 Community Transport

Members  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6