RESOLVED

That in taking decisions relating to the Business Plan 2019-23, the comments and recommendations made by the Overview and Scrutiny Commission and the outcomes of consideration by the Overview and Scrutiny Panels be taken into account.

At the invitation of the Chair, Councillor Peter Southgate, Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission, spoke on the scrutiny referral report.  The Commission and Panels had all raised concerns over the impact of the proposed savings on vulnerable people.  However, there had been very little to scrutinise in the first round of the budget scrutiny process, although it was understood why and the Commission and Panels acknowledged the difficulty faced by the Cabinet in identifying savings to address the budget gap.  He urged Cabinet to be aware of other possible measures, for example to consider the increase the cap on council tax cap rises from 3 to 5% before being required to by referendum, or the extension of the Adult Social Care precept.

The Leader thanked Councillor Southgate for his contributions and the work of the Commission and Panels.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance echoed those thanks and highlighted the extensive work which had gone into the first round of the budget process.  He acknowledged the concerns that savings from now on would have a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups.  The cuts in funding from central government had been so extreme that until now the savings found had been from other services, whilst trying to protect those from vulnerable groups.  Now local authorities from up and down the country had reached a point where they were having to propose cuts to the services which benefited to vulnerable people because those were the only services left.  He acknowledged that there would need to be further savings identified and a large amount of work had been carried out on finding additional savings to get closer to the target.  As in previous years, the first round focused on the “in the round” position and the second round focussed on the detail.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance addressed the recommendation of the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel in relation to the proposed further saving from the borough’s fleet, of which the Cabinet was broadly in support.  However the proposal to use the money saved to increase capital spending on trees would need further work to assess whether that would be an appropriate use of the money.  It was recognised that the trees would have a benefit to the community, but there was a concern that it would generate additional ongoing maintenance costs and there may be other ways of delivering additional trees through the planning process by placing an emphasis on landscaping in new applications.  He also highlighted that the Government having delayed its announcement on the finance settlement was causing major concern to local authorities and that Cabinet would look at any announcements by the Government as soon as they were made.  However the Cabinet took on board the comments of Scrutiny and thanked Councillor Southgate and his scrutiny colleagues for the work which they had done.

RESOLVED

That in taking decisions relating to the Business Plan 2019-23, the comments and recommendations made by the Overview and Scrutiny Commission and the outcomes of consideration by the Overview and Scrutiny Panels be taken into account.