Agenda item

To consider and pass comments to Cabinet on the revenue and capital budget for 2024/25 including the revised Medium Term Financial Strategy.

Mr Clark introduced and set the context for the report. It was explained to the meeting that the comments they made would be put to Cabinet for consideration and the budget itself would then be taken to Full Council for approval. During the current year various work had been undertaken to support this:

·         reviewed the purpose of reserves and realigned budgets accordingly

·         reviewed the detailed budget eliminating any unnecessary budgets

·         reviewed the Medium-Term Financial Strategy

·         provided quarterly monitoring reports

Members were informed that this was the first full year of the in-house finance team being in post and thanked them for their work.

The headlines were:

·         There is still budget volatility, estimates were based on a set of assumptions and forward forecasts, using the best information available

·         The government grant settlement had been increased this year and was higher than expected.  It was again a one-year settlement, so offered no certainty to project forward.

·         The Medium-Term Financial Strategy still shows a budget shortfall for the next 3 years.

·         Forecasted reduction in government grant.

·         Future changes to waste collection services.

·         Impact of exiting external contracts and bringing services in house

·         A bid has been submitted under the governments public sector decarbonisation fund, the overall scheme was £2.2M and we anticipate receiving £1.6M from that fund. The balance had been approved by Cabinet to be from an earmarked reserve, this would be added to the capital schemes listed in the annex.

Members queried:

·         The value of the New Home’s Bonus and it was confirmed to be a reduction to £790K .

·         Leisure centre charges and it was stated that they were CPIX August which was 7.8%.

·         The level of decrease in parking income from 2019/20 until now. It was established that it had reduced by approximately £150K.

·         The increase in green waste subscriptions, and what profit was being made, December year to date subscriptions have increased by 118%. As it is a seasonal service it is difficult to predict. 

·         Investment property rental income was confirmed as a reclassification of the income to track the reclassification of the asset.

·         The cost and timescales of the car park ticket machine rollout. It was confirmed that upgrading 22 of 26 machines for £74K during 2024/25 year

·         Clarification of the new roles in Community Services, Community Safety and Housing Needs. It was explained that a new role within the Community Safety Team focusing on antisocial behaviour, crime prevention role and covering statutory safeguarding. The second role was within the Housing Solutions team and focused on the increased use of bread and breakfast, homelessness and keeping residents in their homes.

·         Funding for the planning resources, and whether the costs were anticipated to be one-off or ongoing. The 80K set aside for planning resources was dependent on the nature of the business case being recommended from the efficiency review.

·         Funding for the peer review was confirmed as a one-off cost and the tree planting work was for backlog clearance.

·         Whether it was possible to give an indication of the tests the budget met and whether it was just met or exceeded.

·         Were there any other stress tests that could be used above the statutory test listed. It was confirmed that additional tests were available such as sensitivity analysis for income and use of prudential indicators for treasury activity.

Members were invited to contact Mr Clark if they had any other questions and drop-in sessions would be offered.