Issue - meetings

The Executive Director of Finance and Corporate Resources presented the Medium Term Financial Plan 2018/19 – 2021/22 - Budget Assumptions report. Members were advised that Officers were making a number of assumptions including:

·                An increase in Council Tax of £5 for 2018/9 to 2021/22.

·                A pay award of 2 per cent for staff.

·                Superannuation savings would be achieved, due to the Council paying pension contributions up front to Worcestershire County Council.

·                An assumption of 0 percent inflation for services.  Officers acknowledged that inflation would be over 3 percent in this period but Heads of Services had been advised that they would be expected to meet the costs of inflation within existing budgets.  The exception to this would be business rates and utilities where an assumption had been made that there would be an increase in budgets in response to inflationary pressures.

·                An assumption that income would be generated from fees and charges.  Heads of Service had been asked to review their charges for 2018/19 so that these were not simply increased by 3.9 percent but rather by a level that would take into account factors such as the costs of delivering the service and customer demand.

There was the potential that the Autumn Budget statement, due to be delivered on 22^nd November 2017, could have implications for local authority budgets.  However, at this stage it was difficult to predict what this might be and therefore officers had based their assumptions on current circumstances.

RECOMMENDED that

the revenue assumptions detailed in 3.4 to the report be incorporated into the budget setting process.