Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Finance

AGREED: That Cabinet reviewed the Council’s approach to balancing the budget and agreed and recommend that Council approved:

i)               The net budget for 2024/25 of £118.721m as set out in the main body of the report.

ii)             Fees and Charges for 2024/25 as set out in Appendix F to the Report.

iii)            The Flexible Use of Capital Receipts for the purposes outlined in Appendix G of the report.

iv)            The statement of MRP policy contained in Appendix H to the report under the heading Minimum Revenue Provision

v)             The Capital Strategy 2024/25 as set out in Appendix H to the report.

vi)            The consolidated Capital Programme for 2024/25 as set out in Appendix I

vii)          That delegated authority is given to the Executive Director of Place and the S151 Officer, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Finance to approve the inclusion of the proposed PSDS project, subject to business case.

viii)         The breakdown of projects with the highway resurfacing programme as detailed in Appendix J to the report.

ix)            The breakdown of projects within the footway maintenance and construction programme as detailed in Appendix J to the report.

x)             The Treasury Management Strategy for 2024/25 as set out in Appendix K to the report, including the Treasury Management Policies and Lending Counterparty Criteria

xi)            The prudential indicators as set out in Appendix K to the report, including the Operational and Authorised limits for external borrowing.

xii)          The allocation of the £165.017m Dedicated Schools Grant as set out in Appendix L to the report.

xiii)         The updated Pay Policy Statement for 2024/25 as set out in Appendix M to the report.

xiv)         An edit to the budget that showed the following lines in Fees & charges as *For Consultation* - Outdoor Facilities - Football, Rugby, Cricket, and Lawn Tennis, with the final increase in fee to be delegated to the Executive Director of Place in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Communities & Leisure.

AGREED: That the order of business be changed so that item 7 is heard first, followed by items 8 & 9 due to the number of registered speakers.

Councillor Jones, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Finance, said that before she wished to introduce the report to Cabinet, she believed that Councillor Reynolds, Cabinet Member for Communities & Leisure, wished to propose an edit to the budget. He wished for an edit to be made to show the following lines in Fees & charges as *For Consultation* - Outdoor Facilities - Football, Rugby, Cricket, and Lawn Tennis, so that any proposed increase could be consulted on properly with the affected sports groups. He said that the final increase in fee would then be delegated to the Executive Director of Place in consultation with himself as Cabinet Member. This edit was accepted by Councillor Jones as the relevant Cabinet Member, along with the rest of the Cabinet as a whole.

Councillor Jones continued her introduction by saying that many councils across the country were setting budgets in a challenging environment of increased social care demand and costs, increased borrowing costs and increased contract costs. Frustratingly the borough also had to deal with the legacy decisions around council tax and capital spend that had long lasting effects on the borough’s spending power. The amount that the council had to spend was £322 per resident less than comparable councils. She said that last year, the outgoing Section 151 Officer also warned that given the level of savings identified, the Council needed to assure itself that there were robust plans and processes in place to deliver and report on the delivery of savings during the current financial year of 2023/24. She added that it appeared obvious to her that given the budget overspends, the robust plans and processes were not in place in February 2023 to deliver the savings that were needed.

Councillor Jones then said that for 2024/25, the borough had to take a different approach and not base the budget on amendments to previous years, as was usual. They had started from the bottom up and had calculated current demands, current costs, current income, looked at trends, strengthened the confidence in the numbers used and addressed any issues that were found whenever and however they came about. There was a £6.00m budget gap and in addition to this, the borough had to address the Adult Social Care £5.00m gap between the 23/24 base budget and demand. The plans to provide growth of nearly £10.00m and savings of £7.50m were already in place and would have the appropriate resources available, in order to achieve the targets. Moving forward, this would be monitored by both the Executive Leadership Team and the Cabinet monthly, following improvements to the finance reporting.

Councillor Jones then discussed changes to the draft budget following the public consultation and also the increase in the settlement grant, which were detailed on Page 5 of the report. Included within this were a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7