Minutes:
Caroline Holland, Director Corporate Services, provide an introduction to the item on budget/business planning (round 1). It was noted that this is the first round of budget scrutiny with a further round happening in the New Year before the Cabinet meeting at which the budget is finalised for approval at Council. The objective of this first round is to provide an update on the Medium Term Financial Strategy and look at the savings and capital programme.
Highlighted there have been changes to the financial gap; whilst there is no additional funding needed in 18/19, from 19/20 onwards a significant increase is needed. There is a predicted gap of £5.7m in 19/20 which rises to £21.7m cumulatively in 21/22.
The budget forecast has been put together inclusive of a number of assumptions. For example, that there will be an increase in staff salaries based on press reports. This won’t be clarified until the budget on 22 November 2017. Until this time, a 2% increase over 2 years has been allowed.
It has been determined that it makes no sense to give additional funding to the Children, Schools and Families and Community and Housing budgets in one year only to expect to take this back as savings in the next year. For this reason, it has been determined that the Environment and Regeneration and Corporate Services Departments will the make the necessary savings in the short term. Also, funding of capital expenditure has been considered.
Chris Lee, the Director of Environment and Regeneration, provided further clarification in response to member questions:
· As detailed on pages 30 and 31 of the agenda pack, the planned savings for 2017/18 have not been delivered and as indicated by their RAG status this is unlikely to change. For example, the planned increase from building control services has not been realised because this has become a very competitive market and it has been difficult to recruit additional inspectors. Pre-app income has not increased given the public’s unwillingness to pay for this service. The planned reorganisation of staff has been affected by the delay in the rollout of ANPR. Additionally, the increase in planning fees promised earlier in the year by Government has not materialised;
· As a result, it is proposed that these unrealised savings are mitigated through the following means: 1) the surplus from the diesel surcharge (being used to fund the Freedom Pass); and 2) an underspend of around £300K. One new saving is proposed which arises from a two year extension to the GLL contract for managing the leisure centre;
· The savings table, on page 31 of the agenda pack, shows that these additional, ambitious savings targets have not been realised. However, it doesn’t mean that there has been no income from items such as the commercial use of parks. Rather this table shows that the additional income target has not been met;
· It is thought unlikely that a saving could be made through the sending of planning consultation letters by email because insufficient email data is held; and
· The free Christmas parking scheme remains unchanged for this financial year. It is proposed to bring forward evidence of the effect of the scheme in 2017 for the scheme to be reviewed in 2018. Currently, the evidence does not exist on which to make decisions about the operation of the scheme. Cllr Sargeant noted that there was also no evidence to support the introduction of the scheme. A motion was proposed by Cllr Bull and seconded by Cllr Holden calling for the Christmas Parking Scheme to be reviewed for the next financial year. Cllrs Bull, Holden and Sargeant voted in favour of the motion. Cllrs Anderson, Braund, Chung and Makin voted against. The motion therefore fell.
Caroline Holland clarified that the increase in the budget for the taxi card/concessionary fares item is linked to inflation.
RESOLVED: the members noted the difficulty they had in following the report and asked that headings be better used and more explanation provided. Caroline Holland noted that this couldn’t be addressed with the current report which had already gone to Cabinet. However, this would be taken into consideration when preparing the second round of budget reports for meetings in January 2018.
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