Issue - meetings

Report of the Executive Director of Resources

The Cabinet considered a report of the Executive Director of Resources that outlined, as a basis for consultation, a set of new revenue budget proposals for 2017/18 to 2019/20 and an overall Council Tax increase of just under 4%.

The Council continued to seek to protect its most vulnerable citizens and to deliver a range of core services to everyone in the City. Nevertheless, continued large Government funding cuts meant that it was increasingly difficult for the Council to maintain this commitment. The savings put forward for consultation in the report affected a range of fundamental services provided by the Council.

The financial proposals were based on the funding set out in the Local Government Finance Settlement announced in February 2016 - a headline 2017/2018 grant loss for the Council of £12m. This would be confirmed in forthcoming Government announcements in December 2016 and February 2017.  Further context was provided in the report of the large grant losses suffered by the Council since 2010.

The 2017/18 Pre-Budget position would reflect additional income from continued growth in the City’s Council Tax-Base – the taxable capacity within the City. It would also be based on an assumed overall Council Tax increase of just under 4%, including 2% to reflect a further amount for Adult Social Care. The Council Tax increase would be subject to Council approval in February 2017.

At the start of this budget setting process, the Council faced significant budget gaps. In addition, the Council now anticipated that savings approved previously for 2017/2018 would not be achieved in line with the original timescale. After taking this delay in meeting savings targets into account, the starting budget gap stood at £19m for 2017/2018 rising to £36m in later years.

The proposals in this report reduced the 2017/2018 gap to £1m and if any of them were not accepted this would increase the size of the gap. Further work would seek to balance the Budget between now and the final Budget Report in February 2017. Details on individual savings were provided in Section 2 of the report and on a line by line basis in Appendix 1 to the report.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet:

1)  Approve the content of the report, the revenue spending and savings options in Section 2 of the report and Appendix 1 to the report and the broad Capital Programme proposals in section 2.8 of the report, as the basis for the Council’s budget consultation process.

2)  Approve the proposed approach on Council Tax in Section 2.9 of the report.