Issue - meetings

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Bryning)

Report of the Head of Resources   (Report to follow)

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Bryning)

Cabinet received a report from the Head of Resources to provide information on the latest budget position for current and future years, to inform Cabinet’s budget and policy framework proposals and to allow it to make final recommendations to Council regarding council tax levels for 2013/14.

The options, options analysis, including risk assessment and officer preferred option, were set out in the report as follows:

Options were dependent very much on Members’ views on spending priorities balanced against council tax levels.  As such, a full options analysis could only be undertaken once any alternative proposals were known and it should be noted that Officers might require more time to do this.  Outline options were highlighted below.

–        Regarding council tax, various options were set out at section 8 of the report in the agenda. 

-        With regard to considering or developing savings and growth options to produce a budget in line with preferred council tax levels, any proposals put forward by Cabinet should be considered alongside the development of priorities and in light of public engagement.  Emphasis should be very much on the medium to longer term position.

Under the Constitution, Cabinet was required to put forward budget proposals for Council’s consideration, in time for them to be referred back as appropriate.  This was why recommendations were required to feed into the Council meeting in early February, prior to the actual Budget Council later that month.

In view of the level of savings needed in 2014/15 onwards, the Chief Executive had implemented a freeze on permanent recruitment, to help manage budget pressures until such time as the Council was clear about how and where it would achieve the necessary budget savings.  Accordingly, in terms of council tax his (and the Head of Resources’) preferred option would be for a 2% increase, given the extra impact that a freeze would have on the budget from 2015/16 onwards and the fact that as yet, the Council had no plans in place to tackle its future budget deficit – and establishing those plans would be exceptionally difficult.  This preferred option would change only if the Council fundamentally reduced its ambitions regarding service delivery and this was evidenced through the adoption of clear plans as part of this budget.  As an indication, in future a tax freeze might equate to around 5 or 6 posts.

The provisional Settlement meant that whilst next year’s budget was manageable, the Council had only limited time to tackle the financial challenges expected from 2014/15 onwards.  These challenges would require fundamental changes to the Council’s current service delivery.  Cabinet was advised to have regard to the medium term in determining its budget and council tax proposals for 2013/14, and to avoid adding even more pressure to 2014/15 and beyond.  It was also advised to set out broad plans for tackling the 2014/15 budget.

Councillor Bryning proposed, seconded by Councillor Barry:-

“(1)      That recommendations 1 and 2, as set out  ...  view the full minutes text for item 102