Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Finance. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Finance and Local Investment and the Assistant Director for Finance.

The report sets out details of the proposed budget for 2024-25 and MTFS to 2028-29, including savings, growth and capital proposals. The report will also set out details of provisional funding for 2024-25 and, if available, the remainder of the planning period and highlight areas of risk. The report recommends that the budget proposals be released for public consultation and Scrutiny consideration. 

The report also includes details of the proposed HRA budget for 2024-25 and MTFS to 2028-29, including proposed 5-year capital investment and funding.

It sets out the proposed changes to the rent levels for Council tenants in General Needs and Sheltered/Supported homes, and residents in temporary accommodation

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Local Investment introduced the report which set out details of the draft General Fund (GF) Budget for 2024/25; the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) 2024/29; the draft HRA Budget 2024/25 and it’s draft Business Plan including estimated income (funding) and expenditure adjustments, as well as the draft capital programmes for both funds. The report sought approval to:submit the detailed budget proposals to Overview and Scrutiny Committee and its Panels in December 2023 and January 2024 for scrutiny and comments; and to commence public consultation on the 2024/25 Budget and MTFS 2024- 29.

The Cabinet Member highlighted that Councils in England faced a funding gap of £4bn over the next two years. Next year’s budget was being developed against a backdrop of continued government austerity and increasing demand for the services. The recent government autumn statement, which did not provide local authorities with additional funding or the assurance that further funding, would be available in the Local Government Finance Settlement expected in January 2024.

It was noted that in the coming financial year the Council would need to fill a substantial financial gap but it was not an outlier and not at the position of issuing a section 114 notice and would be in a position to be able to put forward a budget package to Full Council for approval. Officers were working hard to put forward proposals to plug this gap.

The Cabinet Member continued to set out the stark national economic context that the Council and other Councils were working in which had manifested over a number of years of government cuts in funding, increasing in demand and cost of Adult social care, cost of living crisis, inflation rises and impact of increased interest rates as a result of the mini budget of 2022.

The Cabinet Member outlined that the budget priorities for spend responded to these economic factors and £25.5m growth has been built into this draft budget solely for the demand led services: £20.4m for Adult social care; £3.0m for Temporary Accommodation and £2.1m for Children’s.

In response to questions from Cllr das Neves, Cllr Gordon, Cllr Hakata and Cllr Cawley- Harrison, the following information was provided.

-       Recognised that Adults Services had done a lot of work on addressing the overspend and to reducing the cost of Adult social care. There was assurance that there were a number of work streams in place to continue this focus and Council had worked hard to ensure that there was a right size budget available to Adults service and this meant improved forecasting so help understand the likely expected budget pressures coming through to the service in the short, medium, and long term. An example of this was young people who were coming through from Children Services with significant needs and that would need continued support needed from Adult’s Services once they turned 18. This cohort was already recognised as a growth area and work on right sized budget would help  ...  view the full minutes text for item 41