Issue - meetings

Report of the Interim Chief Executive (Section 151 Officer)

The Cabinet considered a report of the Interim Chief Executive (Section 151 Officer) which set out the proposals for the Council’s final revenue and capital budget for 2023/24.

The report followed on from the Pre-Budget Report approved by Cabinet on 13th December 2022 (minute 64/22 referred), which had since been subject to a period of public consultation. The proposals within the report now formed the basis of the Council's final revenue and capital budget for 2023/24 incorporating the following details:

·  Gross budgeted spend of £812m (£63m or 8% higher than 2022/23).

·  Net budgeted spend of £261m (£23m or 10% higher than 2022/23) funded from Council Tax and Business Rates less a tariff payment of £20.5m due to Government.

·  A Council Tax Requirement of £164.4m (£11.0m or 7% higher than 2022/23), reflecting a City Council Tax increase of 4.9% detailed in the separate Council Tax Setting report on today’s agenda.

·  A number of new expenditure pressures, policy priority proposals and technical savings proposals.

·  A Capital Strategy including a Capital Programme of £159.2m including expenditure funded by Prudential Borrowing of £19.6m.

·  An updated Treasury Management Strategy, Capital Strategy and a Commercial Investments Strategy.

The financial position in this Budget Report was based on the Final 2023/24 Local Government Finance Settlement. The Settlement included some variations to the core position and specific grant allocations received in 2022/23 which provided some additional resources to help the Council manage the pressures it faced, in particular in relation to social care and the wider costs of inflation. The position after 2023/24 remained uncertain despite the Government’s medium-term spending plans being set out in the Autumn Statement published in November 2022. Reviews in relation to the local government financial allocation model and Business Rates retention were not now expected within the current parliament and would therefore not be in place for 2024/25 Budget Setting. The overall local government settlement for 2024/25 was expected to broadly mirror the 2024/25 position but had not been set out at an individual authority level. As a result, it was impossible to provide a robust medium term financial forecast at this stage and the Council had instead made some planning estimates for future years. Initial assumptions indicated the likelihood that there would be a substantial gap for the period following 2023/24. The view of the Interim Chief Executive (Section 151 Officer) was that the Council should be planning for such a position.

The Pre-Budget Report was based on an increase in Council Tax of 4.9% and this position had been maintained for the final proposals in this report. This incorporated an increase of 2.9%, which was within the Government’s limit of 3% above which a referendum would need to be held plus a further 2% Adult Social Care (ASC) Precept line with Government expectations. The Precept was trailed in the Autumn Statement 2022 and included in the Local Government Settlement as the means for councils to maintain their “core spending power”. The precept was essential to enable councils including Coventry to manage  ...  view the full minutes text for item 97