Issue - meetings

The Interim Director of Finance provided the Executive Committee with the Medium Term Financial Plan 2023/24 to 2025/26 – Update.

As Members were already aware, the Council’s budget was being delivered in two tranches for this financial year. The first tranche had been published on 17^th October 2022 and had identified over £1.5m worth of savings. In addition to this, it was reported that as detailed in the previous report, that £400k of unallocated savings had been addressed. It had been hoped that more detail would be available from Government, however at the time of the meeting the details of Local Government Settlement was not available and would not be until the final week in December 2022, much later than in previous years. It had been recognised by Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC) that this would make the budget setting difficult for local authorities and an update on the provisional Settlement would be provided imminently by DLUHC.

Although there were a number of areas that were still to be confirmed there were some known areas within the budget setting process. These were the potential to increase Council Tax by 1% providing £70k. In addition to this, the Council no longer were required to pay National Insurance contributions of 1.25% on all salaries. The Government had reported that a cap would be placed on rents at 7% and further detail would be made available in a future Executive Committee report. In addition to this, the Government had announced £13b worth of funding for protection of rate payers alongside a further £1b worth of Household Support funding.

Inflation was again highlighted during the presentation of this report and Members were informed that the Council was being extremely cautious in terms of the potential inflation on utilities in the future. The Interim Director of Finance reported that he had allowed for an increase of 200% on utilities but it could potentially be more. It was highlighted that the Council’s utilities contracts were due to expire in April 2023 and due to the long notice period in concluding such contracts, it may be necessary to extend the existing contracts. This could help mitigate any potential increases if contracts were made with a new provider.

Members thanked Officers for a clear and comprehensive report and were pleased that the Finance team were operating with caution at such an unpredictable time.

RESOLVED that

That Officers continue to work on additional options, as outlined in the Strategy section of the Tranche 1 Report for presentation to Executive in February as Tranche 2 of the Budget.

RECOMMENDED that

The Tranche 1 savings proposals, the updated WRS Fees and Charges proposals and the single Growth item in respect of the Climate Change Officer are approved for implementation to ensure maximum benefit as at 1st April 2023.