Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director of Finance. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Finance and Strategic Regeneration.]

This report sets out details of the draft proposed budget for 2020/21 and MTFS to 2024/25, including budget reductions, growth and capital proposals.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Strategic Regeneration introduced this report which provided details of the draft proposed budget for 2020/21 and MTFS to 2024/25, including budget reductions, growth and capital proposals.

The Cabinet Member highlighted the proposals set out in this report contained the initial five-year Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) for 2020-2025 that would provide a financial plan during this unprecedented period of uncertainty for Local Authority budgeting. This report still had a budget gap of £0.6m for 2020/21 and work would continue over the next two months to identify solutions to bridge this and in order for a legal, balanced budget to be presented to Cabinet in February 2020.

The Cabinet Member informed the budget monitoring reports presented this year highlighted the progress that had been made on stabilising budgets and confirms that the action taken in setting the 2019/20 Budget was appropriate. Whilst the Council were still forecasting an in year overspend at Quarter Two, the future impact of the main underlying pressures had been addressed as part of the 2020/21 Budget now proposed. The Council also taken advantage of making live budgeting decisions in year such as the approval of a suite of invest to save proposals in Children’s services which were well underway and would contribute to better outcomes for our young people and their families.

The Cabinet Member noted last year’s budget put in place additional funding for a number of priorities. The Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) was extended to a maximum of 100% for our least well-off families with children. This came into effect on 1st April 2019 and is proposed here to be continued for 2020/21. The 2019/20 Budget also provided ongoing investment into a school meals pilot and a youth services programme, alarge portion of which had been used to fund the Summer Holiday Programme which offered morethan 150 activities with 19,602 young people taking part.

The Cabinet Member highlighted that whilst resources continued to be limited, this Draft Budget proposed the introduction from April 2020 of London Living Wage (LLW) rates for Council contracted Homecare staff and also those working in Extra Care Sheltered Housing; additionally, an uplift had been applied to Social Care Direct Payments to individuals in line with LLW rates. Further, an additional sum had also been built in to provide ongoing extra capacity to increase apprenticeship numbers within the Council and across other organisations within the Borough.

The Cabinet Member updated that the £0.6m gap currently forecast for 2020/21 was a much-improved position to that presented a year ago when we still had £6.5m gap to resolve (£7.5m in 17/18). The Cabinet Member believed the Council was in a stronger position as a result of the significant work put into the last budget process to write off unachievable savings targets, improved savings delivery and aligning our resources more effectively to reflect the real pressures and growth felt in our two People services. It must also be recognised the impact that the additional funding  ...  view the full minutes text for item 108