Cabinet - Thursday 6 February 2025, 6:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

Cabinet
Thursday, 6th February 2025 at 6:00pm 

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An agenda has not been published for this meeting.

Good evening everybody, welcome to February's cabinet meeting, I hope you're all well.
Jump straight into the agenda. Apologies, I've got apologies from Councillor Tristan Wilkinson.
We are expecting Mike McEwen, so hopefully he'll be joining us shortly.
Declarations of interest, does anybody have anything that they want to alert the meeting to now?
We've got minutes of the previous meeting.
Any questions on those, Mike?
No?
Okay.
Any others?
Okay.
I'll propose them.
Can I have a seconder?
Mike.
And we'll then move to the vote.
Okay.
Next item is leaders' announcements.
I don't have any.
We will move to the next item, public questions.
I understand we have got public questions from Andy at the back there.
Where do we want Andy?
Nicky? Andrew?
Thank you.
Thanks Andy.
You've got two questions and if you can mince each on each.
Just need to wait a second.
So just getting the, Nicky's getting you a arm.
Sorry, I'm getting, we're jumping ahead.
We want to make sure people can hear and see.
There we go.
Over to you Andy.
All right, thank you and hello, thank you for giving me some time to ask a couple of questions.
I think most of you might know who I am, but if you don't, I'm Andy Farmer.
I was a candidate in the recent Chesterton by -election.
And part of my campaign was speaking to people on the doorstep
about what would they like their council to spend money on.
So a wish list.
And the context was that there may be some underspend potentially coming in
at the end of the financial year from various grant funding streams.
And if so, what would they like the council to spend it on?
By thinking about that early,
potentially could offer the council an easy way and quick way of being able to
spend on the residents of Chesterton without having to rush around too much.
So I'm delivering on my commitment to introduce that to the council. I've got a
wish list created from 86 different people with 47 individual items in terms
of the grant funding, so shared prosperity fund rule, England prosperity
Fund. I already spoke to Councillor Tristan Wilkinson the other day and he said,
great, glad to hear it, have a chat with Paul James. So I'm meeting up with Paul James tomorrow.
Ah, very good. Well done. See you tomorrow. So I won't be going through those now, but the
question I had was around any items that aren't going to be relevant for grant funding.
Where should I take them? Should it be for the council's budget meeting? Should it be
sending to Mike, et cetera.
So, question is for non -grant related requests
for a particular ward and spending on where
should a member of the public submit such a request?
If you could turn your mic off and allow Mike to respond.
Clearly, obviously, we're about thanks for the question.
And, you know, it's interesting.
I'm sure I'll be interested to hear what residents of Chester
and I too spoke to rather a lot of residents of Chesterton
in the not too distant past,
so they're not asking them that specific question.
As with any spending request, anybody can write to me,
as the cabinet member for finance,
or to the deputy chief executive,
who is obviously the responsible finance officer for the council,
and we'll give those consideration.
Thank you very much.
So should I email them through to both of you?
Yeah, great.
I'll do that.
And the second question was related to partly it's on the
wish list, but also as actually an energy enter point coming up
today around parking charges.
So the most, the thing that occurred on everyone's wish list
was around potholes, which was no surprise to anybody,
I'm sure.
but the next most popular was, which did surprise me a bit, was around car park charges.
So some wanted them lower, some wanted them more, some wanted more car park spaces.
There's every spectrum of opinion.
But one common question was, free after three, why was that removed and are there plans to
reintroduce it, and if not, why not?
So my question, but free after three.
Okay I'll pick part up and hand over to Paul to talk about parking to the microphone.
Well you know why is the three after three been removed as we can't afford it.
We're in a pretty difficult position when it comes to our revenue budget so that everyday spending on council services and the three after three initiative was bought in at a time and a number of us campaigned for it.
When our car parks were empty the financial
Position of the council wasn't as perilous as it has been over the last few years
and it was able to
Stimulate a bit of activity within siren sister in particular at a time
2016 when we knew that our car parks were empty and we
Yeah, we wanted to try and drive foot forward.
So that's the sort of background to it.
It lasted up until about 2020, I think, around the pandemic.
And what we found since then is that trends have totally changed since COVID.
So free after free campaign.
Yes, of course, you know, local businesses want it.
They were annoyed when it went and some residents.
But the truth is we've got a really tough financial backdrop and we can't afford it.
It's as simple as that. We've had successive governments who have chronically underfunded local government, including the current one, unfortunately.
So, yeah, we're in a really tough position and we need new solutions.
Paul, is there anything you want to add on that one?
Yeah, thanks for raising the question.
I mean, you'll see in a minute we do have an item on the agenda where we're talking about parking charges and there will be some charges that are frozen.
and that's precisely why we're trying to actually listen to local residents and
businesses. It is difficult as Joe said because we have you know a sort of
triple whammy really of inflation, extra demand and the government cutting our
grants. So it's really really difficult to try and actually keep car parking
charges over the same or to cut them but we're trying to do something and you'll
see that in a minute. I would say a couple of things first of all we do have
in some of our car parks, those bays which are free for 20 minutes.
So we introduced that recently and that was about trying to actually just introduce something
where someone could literally pop in for something very specific for a short time and that would
be free.
The other thing I would say actually interestingly enough is looking at all the data, actually
ticket sales, car parking sales, ticket sales were actually up in 2024.
So even though we did actually put some car parking charges up last February,
February, March, April, the ticket sales did go up. So is this kind of, I think
sometimes people think that car parking charges leads to less business or it's
not always, it's not always the same as that. And then thirdly I would say we are
just in the middle of looking at all the analysis of a car parking consultation
we did last year we did two we did a consultation and a survey with residents
and businesses and we're just sort of literally going through that at the
moment and that will inform you know in terms of the usage of car parks perhaps
our charging structures in some of them you know whether we have more bays for
certain things like disabled bays etc and that will inform that and we're
going to talk about that later in the year publicly.
Not strictly, but I will show flexibility, all right?
I guess more requests rather than a question then.
So in terms of those on lower income,
their specific challenge was, well, they get the supply
and demand for the parking, and it's great
that it is often busy.
But the problem they have is sometimes
when the car parks are seen to be not as busy,
but then as low income they can't quite justify the three pounds or for
several hours of a visit but they'd like to and they didn't feel like they had
any options so clearly they're 20 minutes free is there but so my request
for that consultation if it's not already as a specific item to consider
is for those on on lower income what options they may have maybe it's three
free after four or something three after four thirty or something just putting it
out there that requests that you consider that if you've not already.
All right yeah I mean certainly we'll look at everything when we look at the strategy
as I say there are there are some limitations but that the other thing to
say is at weekends this car park here Trinity Road is available and it's free
so if you have people who specifically approached you who have challenged with
the cost of living and a lot of people are don't forget there is this here as
It's a short walk into town and it's an option, isn't it?
Okay?
Good shout.
Thank you.
Thanks, Andy.
Appreciate you taking the time.
Right.
We move then on to the next item and we have got a lot to get through, so I want to try
and press on.
Next item is member questions.
I haven't been given notification of any.
We move on to item seven, which is issues arriving from overview and scrutiny or audit
and governance.
I don't believe we have any unless I'm mistaken.
Okay.
then we go to the items of business and we're going to do some moving around of
our items just in terms of the order so we're going to have item 8 sorry item 9
the UK share prefer to fund item that's going to become a gender item 8 gender
my 3 which is around parking becomes a gender item 9 gender item 11 fees and
charges becomes a gender item 10 and then agenda item 10 becomes a gender
I don't expect you to remember any of that.
I will make sure that we follow it.
So we move now to the next item, which is the UK Share Prosperity Fund.
Clearly Tristan Wilkinson can't be with us this evening, so I'll be taking us through that item.
So the UK Share Prosperity Fund and the Rural England Prosperity Fund have funded many projects over the past few years,
which are delivering significant and tangible benefits to our district.
Under the leadership of the Lib Dems here at this Council,
we've remained solid in our commitment to supporting
strong, vibrant communities, promoting sustainable economic growth,
and taking meaningful action on the climate emergency.
Since assuming office in 2019, we've prioritised pragmatic, people -centred
policies that really try and make a real difference in the lives of residents.
The progress outlined in this report I think is testament to those values in action.
When the council was awarded one million from the UK SPF in 2022, we recognised pretty quickly
the opportunity not merely to allocate funds but also to invest strategically within the
fabric of our district.
Our focus has been on three key themes.
Communities in place, supporting local business and people in schools.
Over the past two years these funds have helped us deliver projects that reflect our vision
for a thriving, fair and sustainable Cotswolds.
I want to very quickly just highlight a few examples of what we've achieved so far.
The Syrinsister Growth Hub has provided vital business support across the district.
It is now the county's top performing growth hub in terms of outreach and outcomes, strengthening
local enterprises and creating new opportunities.
And all this against a backdrop of European Union funding being totally removed.
So we have come in, we have allocated money,
and we've been able to make sure that the growth hub
remains sustainable.
Many of you know about the Grace Network project
in Syrinsester, which has brought the historic House
of Fraser building in the marketplace in Syrinsester
back into productive use.
That's preserving our local heritage and revitalizing
our local economy.
We've spoken already about the cost of living crisis already.
And that's a great example of where we have invested
and we're able to help support people who are struggling with the cost of living, particularly
around, particularly feeding people. Our investment in village hall improvements has delivered
enhanced sustainability measures including solar panels and better insulation which is helping to
drive forward a whole district's commitment to tackling climate change. And through the Gloucestershire
employment and skills hub we've supported people who are economically inactive to return to work,
training or volunteering, improving livelihoods and
building community resilience.
This is exactly the kind of balanced approach that we
live down the stand for.
We're delivering social progress and economic growth
without compromising our responsibility to the
environment or to future generations.
Looking ahead, we have new opportunities with the
additional £327 ,000 allocated for 25 -26
financial year.
Our priorities remain clear.
We will invest in business skills, strengthen our communities and support projects that
align with both local needs and climate goals.
We are proposing continued funding for initiatives like the San Francisco Growth Hub and local
employment programmes to ensure that key successes are sustained.
At the same time, we will open opportunities for new expressions of interest, enabling
further innovation and engagement across the district.
It sounds like tomorrow there is already a meeting happening, which is very good news.
We are also committed to responsible financial management.
As today's report makes clear, this Council has worked diligently to ensure that every
pound of funding has been spent effectively and will continue in that vein.
We have demonstrated time and time again that we can use funding efficiently to deliver
outcomes that benefit our community.
The achievements highlighted in this report reflect the wider priorities of our Administration
tackling the climate emergency, empowering local communities and supporting sustainable economic growth.
I think this is further evidence that with strong leadership, public investment can deliver real and lasting benefits across the district.
I'd like to extend all my thanks to the officers, stakeholders and community partners who have played a key part in delivering these projects.
In particular, Councillor Tony Dale, Councillor Tristan Wilkinson and of course Paul James.
Your efforts are deeply appreciated and are helping to build a brighter, greener and fairer
future for the Cotswold District, just as we pledged to do five years ago.
Paul, is there anything you'd like to add in terms of some of the detail of the report?
No, I'm happy to answer any questions.
Brilliant.
You need to use the mic, Paul, otherwise people can't follow it.
Thank you.
Yeah happy to answer any questions of detail but I think
reduced or frozen and we have to balance that against the need to provide that
service and the need to be able to maintain the services that we provide to
the residents of the district and I think the balance we've got here by
saying in the first hour we're going to freeze that so people who just need a
shorter stay in one of our car parts they won't be paying any more after
April than they're paying now but that actually we will need to increase with
inflation the other charges because ultimately if we don't increase charges
with inflation we're making them cheaper and we have to accept that and I think
it's important you know when we are in a we're going to talk about the council's
budget and finances in a little while to recognize that you know we can't afford
to be making car parking cheaper essentially in real terms when our budget is under the
pressure that it is. So I think we've got that balance right and then worked with Paul
on these proposals. Just to add a little bit on Borton on the water because it's a little
bit of my baby when I was as a project and I think it's been incredibly successful and
Paul's talked about some of the successes
and how the money has been used.
And I think if I recall correctly,
we introduced that four years ago at 50 pence.
So by putting it up by 10 pence,
and it's been at that level for four years.
So, and I recognize that we have had
quite an exceptional period of inflation in that time,
two years when we were in sort of up into the double digits
or the high single figures.
So what this will do is it will sort of get back
to the real terms value I think of what that we were able to provide in the
first year in terms of support for the community and Paul's mentioned some of
the things that the tourism levy is used on and I think you know it has been a
great success and helps the village to manage that those visitor volumes that
they get as Paul outlined which is the purpose of it so I'm very happy to
second the recommendations chair. Thank you well I really welcome this I think
it's fantastic news especially with the cost of living I think you know we do
need to be trying to freeze things where we can and we know it's extremely
difficult with the budgets that we're faced with and the other thing as well
as we've actually put mother and child parking spaces into our car parks as
well which is making it more accessible for parents with pushchairs having four
children very young myself trying to deal with four toddlers getting out of a
can sometimes be a challenge. And also I think we've seen you know across across
the country that shopping trends are changing but actually our car parks do
seem to be you know busy we can see our town is you know it is busy and I think
that's a real positive. I do have a question at the bottom of page 27 and
we've got Syrinsest at a maximum of six days maybe purchased in advance at
£3 .20 a day which I think is very good value especially for those that
in town and say to be able to park for 10 hours for £3 .20 I think I don't
actually know many places that offer such value and I just wondered how are
they purchased? Do they have to phone up or can it be purchased on the app? Thank you.
Maria do you want to try and answer that?
Yeah either way. Either way. Both ways.
Brilliant. We like short answers. Brilliant. Does anybody want to say anything else on this?
Parking charges is always an issue which causes a lot of...
That is really annoying.
The focus keeps going in and out.
We're not streaming.
No, but we're recording.
Right, okay. Well in that case... No, okay, that's fine, I can ignore it.
There ain't a chance you can turn that off because it is incredibly annoying.
That one time. Yeah.
Thank you, there we go. Yeah, no, parking charges is always a difficult issue, isn't it?
And I think we do get it.
We get why people go, oh, parking charges.
So I think it's good news that we're freezing.
But I think there's other fares that we're
putting up a little bit.
I think it's fair, particularly considering
the cost of inflation.
I have parents who both have businesses
in the center of Sire and Cestor.
And actually, we are remarkably resilient.
And actually, I don't think parking charges makes
a blind bit of difference to footfall,
particularly in a place like Sire and Cessna. There are sometimes undoubtedly it will but I think we are incredibly resilient.
We've got a unique offer in the town and I think you know as a result we're incredibly lucky.
So we are able to put a little bit of money on a parking charge, and it doesn't have a massive issue.
But what it does do is it means that we can continue as a council to pay for the incredibly important
services that residents rely on whether that's help the cost of living, whether that's the planning team, planning service,
everything that District Council does, money raised in our car parts goes back into those services.
So I think it can be justified and I think residents would rather pay an extra 10, 20p here or there than say their council go bankrupt.
So I think that is the ultimate point.
Right, in that case, Paul, is there anything you want to add before we move to the vote?
If I can just thank Maria and the team for all the help that they give on this
and also those out there including our parking enforcement officers you know
who don't have an easy job necessarily who do do what I call the grunt work to
make all this happen so I think yeah let's move to the vote thank you.
Thank you Paul so we've got that proposed by Paul seconded by Mike if we go to the
vote please we will be going to the budget in just a second lovely so our
next item is item 11 not parking fees and charges this time but fees and
charges so take through this thank you thank you Joe so this is all the other
fees and charges. So this is a report that comes every year and you know it is
good practice for the council to review its fees and charges every year because
as I was referring to in the last discussion, inflation is there eating
away at the value of fees and charges every single year. So it's important that
we look at that and make sure that we are setting our charges appropriately to recover
costs where we need to do that or in order to support our service provision.
So you can see in the summary there around a recommendation around looking at CPI and
inflation and the charges are proposed around it to the nearest 50 pence a
pound or five pounds as appropriate within the report you can see where
there is general change of around about 2 % and those are listed in 3 .1 in the
particular areas and then in 3 .2 there is where they're varying off that and I
will just refer to a few of those because they're more significant ones.
The garden waste subscription colleagues will be aware that we look to set the
garden waste charge at a level in order to cover the costs of the service which
is now getting on towards one and a half million pounds the cost of providing a
garden waste service fortnightly to the residents who choose to have that and on
the calculations that we've done this year we will need to increase the charge
for that service by five pounds to sixty nine pounds in order to cover the costs
of the provision of that service.
Also clearly on planning, we have certain statutory fees which are referred to in paragraph
3 .3, so most of the planning charges are statutorily set by the Government, but there are those
which have some discretionary elements to them.
But we are currently got a review going on with advice from the Planning Advisory Service,
so we're not proposing to change those fees at the moment.
In some of them, like biodiversity net cane has recently been set, so we're not proposing
to change that.
We have looked at high hedge complaints and the charge hasn't changed, I understand, for
quite a long time.
And we're very under -recovering.
So we are looking to make a significant increase there.
We have very, very few of these to cover the costs
that we incur in dealing with those complaints.
And you'll see in licensing and where we're looking
to put a higher charge increase
because we want to provide additional staffing support
to help with the service.
And finally, on public conveniences,
members will recall that we had a task group
within our overview and scrutiny committee,
passed at the end of 2023, start of 2024,
and then made some recommendations to us.
And we are working through those recommendations.
But one of those was to look at the charge.
What we decided as cabinet was that we would
close some conveniences where we had multiple conveniences
in one location and that we would look to bring in a charge across where we
didn't currently charge. So that process is still underway in the latter part of
introducing charges to toilets that are currently free. So what I'm proposing is
that we don't increase the charge at the moment what we want to see is the impact
of increasing that putting charges in where we don't currently make a charge
and then we can look at that either this time next year or sooner if we feel that
it would be appropriate looking at where that budget position is because
essentially what we've got in the budget for next year is the same. Looking at
David will correct me if I get this wrong, the same provision in terms of
income as we have for this year for the chart for the service. So I'll stop there
Chair in terms of talking about the fees and charges. The recommendations are on
page 193, is asking us to endorse the rationale
for revising the fees and charges as set out in the report
and improve the implementation of those charges,
revised charges, from the 1st of April, 2025.
Thank you very much. Any questions or comments? Claire?
Well, I'm happy to second this.
I think it's what we need to do. We have to do it.
We have to face these sorts of things and get on with it.
I think some things have stayed the same as well.
And I'm really pleased that if people are struggling,
we often hear about the cost of a green bin collection.
But actually, again, our council is offering
a good reduction, 50 % reduction,
for garden waste, licenses for anybody
on housing benefit or tax support.
And also the bulky waste.
I don't think we advertise this enough, you know, I know that a couple of councillors here have actually used it including myself
It's a great service, you know for the price that you're paying
You know and actually if you're on benefits you get a 50 % reduction in that as well
So really happy to support it and yeah, thank you very much
Any other comments?
Okay.
I don't have anything to add, so Mike, anything you want to summarize?
Yeah, just to thank Claire for that.
And having recently used the Bulky Way service, it was excellent.
You know, you go online, tell them what you want them to collect two days and then they give you a date and they come and collect it on the day.
They said they're a very, very good service.
And I think for what we're charging for it,
much preferable to having to sort of think
about getting stuff up to Foscross.
And obviously some of the things are just, you know, far large.
So very, very good service that we're providing.
And yeah, we do obviously make people aware of that.
But yeah, there's probably more we can do.
Tristan's not here in terms of it's his service now,
but thinking about how we make people aware of that.
And yeah, I think the point about you know where we have some of these discretionary services and things like the charge with
delivering garden waste or general waste bins that we do recognize that some people are very financially stretched. So a
lot of councils don't provide any support with that and I think we do and I think it's important thing that we continue to do.
Brilliant. So I propose if I might second if I could, I will move then to the vote.
Thank you. That is unanimous. We now then move to the next item, which is the medium -term
financial strategy and budget. Mike, you're going to introduce us.
Thank you. Thank you, Joe. So for those of you on old -fashioned papers, it's page 47.
It's agenda item 10.
I'm conscious that it goes from page 47 to page 191.
And we do also have some annexes,
Annex G and Annex I as well.
So to draw people's attention to that
and an additional Annex D1.
So quite a lot of paper,
but essentially as members will be aware,
The Budget, the Capital Programme and the Medium -Term Financial Strategy are absolutely
crucial documents for this Council to consider and colleagues will be aware and see that
following our decision this evening, final determination of the Council's budget and
setting of the council tax will happen on Monday the 24th of January, February.
So in a couple of weeks time we will be in this room together with all members of the
council setting the council tax and setting the budget.
Members will recall that we had papers prior to Christmas of draft budget and medium -term
financial strategy.
Then subsequent to that we had a settlement,
a provisional settlement announced just before
Christmas and a final settlement for government
funding was provided to us last week.
The Deputy Chief Executive and I attended the
overview and scrutiny committee meeting on
Monday and made a presentation to them of
the financial position of the Council and also answered questions that they had around
how we had got to the point of the papers that you've got in front of us this evening.
You've also within as well as the Budget Capital Programme and MTFS, you've got results of
the budget consultation which was a much more limited exercise this year. The reason for
that was that at the time that we would normally do that, our communications team was going
through significant change, but it's come back to us from Publica. So we decided not
to run that at that time when we would normally have run it in October, November. And when
we then were thinking, okay, we would like to sort of get on and do this, we then were
faced with a by -election, which restricts what we're able to do in terms of communications.
So we ran a more limited exercise in January,
fronted by the Deputy Chief Executive rather than myself.
And I think it's a consequence, you know, we have 46 responses
when we're used to getting over 400.
And I think what that shows is that, you know, actually to get the public engaged,
you've got to do quite a lot of work in terms of getting it out there and in front of people.
So, you know, we weren't able to do that this year.
it but it's certainly my intention that we would do that again next year. So in
terms of where we are and what's had changed since the autumn when we looked
at the draft we've got the the settlement and as I said to the
overviewers group committee on Monday I think it's the worst settlement that
we've had in the five nearly six years now that I've been doing this job.
Essentially, the amount that the government is going to provide to us to support our services
is essentially the same as last year, so a zero increase, and assumes that we will increase
our council tax by the maximum we are allowed, which in our case is £5.
So it's not a generous settlement to district councils.
I think of the vast bulk of district councils are in the same place where we have a settlement.
One of the things that's particularly affecting us is the abolition of the Rural Services
Delivery Grant, which was delivering over £800 ,000 a year into our budget, and that
was abolished in the announcement without any notice or consultation.
The money that essentially is rectified by the fact that we have a guarantee from the
government that we wouldn't have less core spending power than last year.
So essentially whilst that was 800 ,000 was taken away it was given back to us in another
way.
I think one of the other messages that I think members need to be aware of is that we are
being hit by the employers national insurance rise.
I think when it was announced by the Chancellor in her budget
in October, it was suggested and I
implied that councils would receive support
to offset the increased cost of national insurance.
We are receiving support, but it's nowhere near enough
to offset the cost.
I haven't got the figure, but the Deputy Chief Executive
may be speaking after me, if you can just make members
aware of the difference from memory.
I think it's well over a quarter of a million pounds
difference to what national insurance is going to cost,
the increase is going to cost us compared to what the
government is going to fund.
So, we have these headwinds.
As I said, the government assumes that we will put the
Council tax up by a maximum, which in our case is £5 a year, which was part of our
consultation and as we have done in previous years, taken that flexibility in order to
be able to continue to provide the services that we want to provide.
I think in terms of taking things forward in the budget this year, you can see within
and helpfully David has written an executive summary for us.
I don't need to really rehearse for members here,
but the backdrop of council finances
is not getting any easier.
And a number of councils, I think,
six have recently announced, the governments announced,
are being allowed to put their council tax up
by more than the referendum limits.
But that's only after they've exhausted
all the other ways in which they could raise further funds or use some of their
capital receipts to support their revenue budget. There are a few places
where we are looking to invest and you can see those in para 1 .21 in some
additional posts but we're also very clear about how we can use other as far
as possible we're using revenue reserves to fund those so we recognize that we
need to give more support to our strategic housing officer and we're
proposing to fund that from the second homes premium which will come into
effect on the 1st of April and we recognize you know within this these
figures you know we have a budgetary challenge I think when we talked about
it before Christmas we were looking at a funding gap in the region of 4 million.
Now David's worked very hard and I've been working with him to see how we can
get that gap down and we've changed some of our assumptions and they're all
outlined in the report but the MTFS you know members will see for 26 -27 starts to
show a very significant funding gap.
We're still forecasting that we will potentially lose
two million pounds from the government funding,
which is absolutely massive, really.
So, and you can see that in table ES1,
the medium -term forecasts.
And moving through, you can see the pressures
that we're facing in table ES2 and the inflationary pressures.
And clearly also we are looking to make savings and we will need to make significant savings in order to be able to
continue to support and provide the services. So part of that is about how do we
transform the services that we have, the ones that are coming back from Publica, in order to make them more efficient
so that we can continue to provide them.
And in 1 .40 there you can see
the reserves that we are looking to use and the allocations that we have made to support
our work going forward.
And there then broken down in Table ES4 you can see how potentially we may need to use
our reserves in order to continue to remain a financially solvent council.
and I think as I've said before there are other councils that are much in a more precarious
position than ourselves and the financial position isn't getting any easier for local
government finance.
One thing that members may be aware of, because we have talked about it at previous meetings
I think with members of cabinet, is the position regarding our pooled funds where we have these
investments and whether we might need to put money aside
in order to repay a potential loss on those pooled funds.
I think the good news that we just got last week
is that potentially we won't need to do that.
So that means that we won't need to use some of our reserves
in order to mitigate a loss that we don't need to crystallise,
which is obviously good news.
Moving quickly on then to the the capital program you can see in table ES5A at 150 and
the big numbers in there really is around the waste vehicles and that was discussed
as well at the overview and scrutiny committee in 26 -27 and the assumptions around recommissioning
and buying new waste vehicles.
So there's a lot of work going on with officers, with the Council members to look at how and
whether we fund those replacement vehicles because they're currently sitting at £5 million
in our capital budget in year 26, 27.
And so clearly that's both a significant use of capital monies and we would, if we were
to make those investments at that level, we would need to borrow money and obviously the
cost of borrowing whilst it may have come down a little bit today is not
where it was three or four years ago. So you can see that in terms of the
borrowing there potentially of in table ES5B of 2 .871 million potentially
required to support those purchases. So I'll come to conclusion because I'm sure
you want me to come to a conclusion. So the one thing I haven't mentioned this
evening and David might touch on it is clearly the announcements about
devolution and more specifically affecting us local government the
organization there are quite a lot of imponderables with that uncertainties so
in terms of this budget proposal we haven't made any significant changes or
to it as a consequence of the white paper that the government put out just before Christmas.
But clearly we are all aware of that, but the Council might cease to exist now, probably
three years' time rather than two, given the announcement yesterday, and what that might
mean for us.
What we will be doing, clearly, and David will be leading on, is working through the
implications of that.
So when we're considering our draft MTFS later on in the year, we will be able to reflect
the potentially
shorter lifespan of the council and how then we look to manage our finances for the last few years of our existence.
I'll stop there, Joe.
Thank you.
It's interesting, isn't it? Setting a medium -term financial strategy for a period.
I mean, you know, you're not going to exist in three years, but hey -o.
Never mind the government. Excellent. David is there anything you'd like to add?
If I may, Chair. Just to go back over the employer national insurance contribution.
So in round numbers the estimated cost that this council will have to
bear both through directly and indirectly employed staff is four
hundred thousand pounds per annum. The funding that we'll get is a hundred thirty
£3 ,000 per annum, so quite a significant gap that this Council will have to absorb
through changes to the budgets and clearly difficult choices in terms of what that will
do.
The final settlement made no other changes other than around employers' national insurance
contributions, but even that small change in that assumption works its way through the
So there will be an updated version of this report for Council to consider.
Currently the action log of changes runs at 62 changes.
Most of those are additional words or clarifications because on subsequent read through by myself
and the team there's probably a couple of areas that we could expand upon and particularly
section 6 just comes to a very quick stop without a sense of a conclusion to it.
So it won't necessarily affect the reading through
of that report and debate tonight at Cabinet,
but I'm sure members will appreciate some extra wording
to consider at Council.
In terms of, I suppose, the wider medium -term
financial strategy, as Councillor Efremi has made clear,
we are facing a significant budget gap from 26, 27
on wards throughout the MTFS period.
The MTFS has been prepared on the basis that we are a going concern, that despite, I suppose,
the potential change that the White Paper will bring, we need to demonstrate that we
are a financially sustainable council and clearly with the significant budget gap opening
from 26, 27, this council will have to make some difficult decisions over the coming months
to ensure that it can remain financially sustainable over the medium -term plan period.
Thank you David.
You know it's pretty bleak isn't it?
You know, it's going to, as if government's plans do come to fruition and we do end in 2028,
it's a pretty sad whimper isn't it?
Not just for us but for many district councils.
Basically been run down, degraded over the years and are going to whimper to a sad death unfortunately.
It's really pretty bleak and I think actually when you consider what districts do and have
done over the years, quite often we've been the ones on the front line, whether that was
in COVID, helping to bring communities together, support them, roll out funding, or whether
that's been over the years, investments in our community.
It's really quite sad and I think what the whole funding settlement has I think demonstrated
couple with the budget is that austerity is far from over and that's
pretty depressing to be honest and that's not me trying to
talk everything down but it is really very tough isn't it and
I've been a district councillor here for 14 years, God help me, and
I think, and Juliet yourself and Patrick at the back there and all we've ever
known is funding reductions, cuts, and it's pretty bleak isn't it? There was a
time when councils would be able to properly shape their areas with
community leadership back with funding and powers to raise income locally and
you know we are so far away from that I think it's pretty bleak and we're gonna
move soon to a system where we have regional governance really because
that's what it is across a wide county area and regional mayors and I do think
that's um I do think you know we need to think long and hard about that in any
devolution discussions so I'm not directly related to this budget you know
I think degrading councils finances particularly district councils is I
think is being done rather intentionally and has been done for a number of years
so anyway that's the depressing stuff I think you know start by thanking David
and David in particular but also yourself Mike for the leadership on on
this budget you know you come every year quite often in incredibly difficult
circumstances and there are always bits in the budget which you know give course
for optimism despite incredibly tough and incredibly tough background so you
know well done to you I don't professor talk through everything we're
gonna we're gonna have a budget meeting on me in a few weeks time at full
Council and you know we'll be able to discuss that there in some depth.
But yeah a big thank you to the both of you and I think also to our
wider staff who do everything that they can to make sure that a lot of our
services are run efficiently, good value for money. I think it's a shame quite
often in councils there's this perception that we spend all of our time
you know, spaffing money up the wall to quote a former Prime Minister and it
really isn't the case is it? The truth is that we have fantastic officers that do so
much with increasingly little and you know we're getting to a ticking time bomb now aren't
we with social care. It is ridiculous that we're in a situation where governments of
all colours have failed to grasp the social care issue, pushed it down onto local authorities
And as a result, it is just a financial black hole.
And, you know, that's not good for people who are going through
social care, and the process is not good for people that want
their potholes fixed or...
So, yes, it is a pretty depressing state of affairs.
But, yeah, congratulations to David and to Mike for presenting
a balanced budget, first of all, and to everybody who will help
make it a reality.
I think we've got two comments I can see.
Paul and then Claire.
Yeah, no, thank you.
Obviously, so much has been said, but I just wanted to
sort of hone in on two things.
Well, first of all is the government's national
insurance rise, which has been mentioned, and then
secondly, the fact that the local government
settlement from the new government means that in
real terms, once you take inflation out, we
actually get less.
And I mean, and those two things, you know, we, I
personally hope for so much better from this
new government.
I mean, local government finances, so many things
were run into the ground under the Conservatives.
Yet here we are with another government,
a Labour government, and we have this Nash Insurance
rise, which is hammering businesses,
and that is then leading to businesses shutting.
I know there's one in Siren Sester that specifically
cited this as one of the reasons that they are struggling.
And it is having the wrong effect, sadly.
You know, the government has picked on the wrong thing.
And then secondly us as a council having less cash even less cash in real terms than we have before
It's far worse than we ever hopeful. You know, I hope for so much better really so I think it is sad
But it means that all the things we do become even more challenging and we have to work smart very much smarter
Just to stand still
It's more clear
Yeah, it is it is somebody budget related
I suppose, and again picking up on the NI, you know,
to be promised that councils would get full coverage
of their NI and to be, well,
that really wasn't true, was it, at all.
And I think the other thing is we, as councillors,
we see a lot of residents on a daily basis
and we've built up nice, well, some good relationships,
some not so good, and some of our vulnerable residents
that do rely on the services
and the financial support of this council
are very fearful of the future and not having that local community connection
to a council that's here with its doors open ten till two, sorry, nine till five
isn't it? Sorry that's the phone lines, ten till two every day so you know it is very
sad and you know hats off to my colleague, Council Evamie and all the
staff that work so hard to work with these budgets and have to deliver this
devastating news to many of our residents so on my behalf thank you very
much for all you do. Brilliant. Mike do you want to say any final words? Yeah just a few
final thank you colleagues I won't reprise obviously what you've said. I
wanted to draw colleagues attention to the fact that we do we are projecting
our budget will have a surplus in it next year of £662 ,000 and that is in line with
the motion that we passed at Council back in November 2023 when we said that we need
to put surpluses into the budget this current year we're in and next year because we know
this cliff edge is coming and now this cliff edge is here the government are currently
consulting on their proposed changes to funding for local
authorities.
And the figures that we've got in here are based on the best
advice we get from PIXEL, our consultants,
around what funding will look like from the government.
But clearly we don't know what that's going to be,
and we don't know how much they're going to mitigate that
change through damping of the, or when the change comes in,
for 26 -27.
But I just wanted, I didn't mention in my presentation the
almost the thing that has saved us. So one thing that the government has done for us this year that
hasn't happened, has been promised in previous years is
the money for extended producer responsibility, which is a jargon, almost sounds like a jargon thing, but it's essentially to support
waste and recycling services across the country.
and to levy the costs onto the producers of that waste
and give it to us as collectors of that waste.
So that is this year, one and a half million pounds.
So, see, without that, we would be not producing a surplus of £662 ,000.
We'd be in a much worse position.
although the downside of that is one there is some risk that we might not be able to keep it all
and two that we don't know what we're going to get next year because it's not clear you know
the funding stream how that will go on in future and clearly as well producers are going to want
to minimize what they're having to pay so they may change the way in which they package goods which
and it could be hopefully positive for the environment,
but might have then a negative impact on us
as the people who are getting the levy.
So I'll probably finish off by saying, yeah,
clearly the situation is we are in better probably position
than most district councils,
but as the leader has said,
most district councils this year
have really been hit quite hard
in terms of what they've got
out of the settlement differently.
if you look at the different categories of councils,
district councils have got by far the worst settlement
compared to the unitaries or counties
or metropolitan or London boroughs.
But obviously it's our job to get on with it
and set a balanced budget.
And I'm confident we can make formally move
the recommendations which are on page 47 and 48.
There's 11 of them.
So I'm not going to read them all out.
Joe, you will be pleased to know, but they are there,
and that is what we are asking you to support in the vote.
Coming up.
I am pleased to second that. So we will go to the vote.
Brilliant. That is unanimous. Thank you very much, Mike.
We have one more item, which is a schedule of decisions
taken by the leader of the council
or individual cabinet members.
That's just for noting and no decisions have been taken in the last month.
That is everything.
I look forward to seeing you all at the Budget Meeting in a couple of weeks' time.
I'll probably get to discuss this all again.
Thank you very much.
Have a good evening.
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