Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Town Hall - Maidenhead

Contact: Karen Shepherd  07766 778286

Video Stream: Click here to watch this meeting on YouTube

Items
No. Item

63.

Apologies for Absence

To receive any apologies for absence

Minutes:

Apologies for Absence were received from Councillors Luxton and Price.

64.

Council Minutes pdf icon PDF 762 KB

To receive the minutes of the meeting of the Council held on 25 January 2022.

Minutes:

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting of the Council held on 25 January 2022 be approved.

65.

Declarations of Interest pdf icon PDF 101 KB

To receive any declarations of interest

Minutes:

No interests were declared.

66.

Mayor's Communications pdf icon PDF 59 KB

To receive such communications as the Mayor may desire to place before the Council

Minutes:

The Mayor had submitted in writing details of engagements that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor had undertaken since the last ordinary meeting. These were noted by Council.

 

67.

Public Questions pdf icon PDF 98 KB

The deadline for public questions (which must be directly related to the budget) is 5pm on Wednesday 16 February 2022.  A supplement listing valid questions received will be added to the agenda after the deadline.

(The Council will set aside a period of 30 minutes to deal with public questions, which may be extended at the discretion of the Mayor in exceptional circumstances. The Member who provides the initial response will do so in writing. The written response will be published as a supplement to the agenda by 5pm one working day before the meeting. The questioner shall be allowed up to one minute to put a supplementary question at the meeting. The supplementary question must arise directly out of the reply provided and shall not have the effect of introducing any new subject matter. A Member responding to a supplementary question will have two minutes to respond).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

a)    Ed Wilson of Clewer and Dedworth West ward asked the following question of Councillor Hilton, Cabinet Member for Finance and Ascot:

Will the Lead Member advise when RBWM will repay its’ short-term debt and how this will impact the Council’s revenue budget?

 

Written response: Based on the current forecast of future capital cashflows the Council is projecting to have repaid all of its short-term debt by the end of 2035/36.  Based on current assumptions of future interest rates the cost of this debt is projected to peak at £2.540m per year in 2024/25 before gradually decreasing to zero by 2036/37.  The average cost of short-term debt is projected to be £1.470m per year from 2022/23 to 2035/36.

 

By way of a supplementary question, Ed Wilson commented that the fact the borough had a plan to repay its short term debt would be news to many residents. He asked how Councillor Hilton was proposing to share the news with residents?

 

Councillor Hilton responded that, as always, the council was very open and transparent in its financial dealings. The report included the capital cashflow document which showed that over the medium term (to 2035/36) the projected receipts would be £163m more than the projected spend. This was the reason why it was believed that in the medium term debt could be zero. He would consider whether more should be done to promote this, including in Around the Royal Borough.

 

b)   Ed Wilson of Clewer and Dedworth West ward asked the following question of Councillor Johnson, Leader of the Council:

What steps has RBWM taken to ensure that it does not follow the example of Slough Borough Council and become bankrupt?

 

Written response: One of the core messages from the Slough Governance review for the Secretary of State was the importance of good financial governance. This is a message already understood by RBWM from the CIPFA review presented to Cabinet in June 2020. As such, many actions have been taken to strengthen financial governance. These include:

 

·         Establishment of a robust medium-term financial strategy that underpins our budget setting. This allows us to budget in the context of challenges in future years, rather than narrowly focusing on the year in question.

·         Development of a transformation plan which will link to this medium-term financial strategy, as it will be a key enabler of achieving the significant savings required in future years.

·         Establishment of a Capital Board and the strengthening of links between capital and revenue budgets, so the impact of capital schemes on the revenue budget is understood.

·         On debt, reporting of debt has been strengthened and bad debt provisions reviewed to ensure they are appropriate.

·         Partnership arrangements have been reviewed and actions implemented, including Optalis, AfC and the Property Company.

·         New internal auditors have been appointed, allowing a fresh pair of eyes on our processes.

·         Audit and Governance Committee has been established to facilitate greater Member scrutiny of financial matters.

As well as these specific actions from the CIPFA action plan, the finance  ...  view the full minutes text for item 67.

68.

Petitions

To receive any petitions presented by Members on behalf of residents.

 

(Notice of the petition must be given to the Head of Governance not later than noon on the last working day prior to the meeting. A Member submitting a Petition may speak for no more than 2 minutes to summarise the contents of the Petition).

Minutes:

No petitions were submitted.

69.

Referrals from other bodies

To consider referrals from other bodies (e.g. Cabinet)

 

Minutes:

i)             Appointment of Local External Auditors

 

Members considered the recommendation from the Audit and Governance Committee.

 

Councillor Hilton Council explained that Council was asked to approve that RBWM remained part of the Public Sector Auditor Appointments (PSAA) collective procurement arrangement to appoint an External Auditor from the 2023/24 financial year, on the grounds that the approach was most likely to achieve best value in a restricted market and avoided the need and cost of the council itself undertaking a complex and time-consuming procurement process.

The council had the option of appointing an auditor independently or remaining part of the Public Sector Auditor appointments.

 

Councillor Hilton explained that over the years audit fees had gradually reduced but during 2019 a number of financial crises and failures in the private sector led to a focus on the quality of their work. A national drive to improve audit quality had created a major pressure for audit firms to ensure full compliance with regulatory requirements and expectations in every audit they undertook. Firms had asked their audit teams to undertake additional work to gain deeper levels of assurance.   This had led to lengthened audits, increased costs, and just as importantly an effective reduction in audit capacity.

 

Against this backdrop it would be very challenging for the council to independently appoint an auditor. Indications were that the S151 officers of the Berkshire unitary authorities were minded to sign up to the Public Sector Auditor Appointments, and as they shared the Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund they saw merit, if it could be achieved, of using the same auditor. The Audit and Governance Committee had supported the recommendation.

 

It was proposed by Councillor Hilton, seconded by Councillor Johnson, and:

 

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That Council notes the report and:

Approves that RBWM remains part of the public sector auditor appointments (PSAA) collective procurement arrangement to appoint an external auditor from the 2023/24 financial year, on the grounds that this approach is most likely to achieve best value in a restricted market and avoids the need and cost of the council itself undertaking a complex and time-consuming procurement process.

 

 

ii)            2022/23 Budget

 

Members considered the recommendation from Cabinet. It was noted that updated versions of Appendix 1 Annex I2 and I3 had been published.

 

Councillor Hilton thanked Directors and officers across the council for their professionalism and the way they had worked with their respective Cabinet Members and particularly the finance team. The budget continued to build upon the strong financial foundation laid down in 2020 which, despite the challenge of COVID, would deliver three years of underspends.

 

Councillor Hilton stated that he was presenting an investment budget. A budget that consolidated hard-won gains and delivered the new 2021-26 Corporate Plan.  A plan and budget that continued the transformation and modernisation programme that ensured the sustainability of crucial frontline services; harnessed the power of new technology and latest expert thinking; and put the needs of residents at the heart of everything the council did to create a community-centric  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69.

Recorded Vote
TitleTypeRecorded Vote textResult
2022/23 Budget Motion Carried
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