Issue - items at meetings

To receive Report No. 8/2018 from the Director for Resources.

· The above report was presented to Cabinet on 16 January 2018 and the recommendations within the report were approved.

· Cabinet has requested that Scrutiny review and comment on proposals before the Cabinet on 20 February 2018 so as to inform the decision-making process.

· The report and its proposals may be amended following the outcome of the Scrutiny Panel. Scrutiny is therefore asked to consider the report and provide feedback to the Portfolio Holder and Director.

Report No. 8/2018 from the Director for Resources was received.

The Acting Leader, Mr Hemsley, introduced the report advising Members that on 16 January 2016 Cabinet had approved the draft budget for consultation which the Scrutiny Panel had before them.

The context for the draft budget was one that the Council was now unfortunately used to: getting less Government funding at a time when it had significant pressure on the budget through greater demand for important services, like providing care for adults and children.

Councillor Hemsley set out some of the key points:

· The Council was getting £1.5m less in Government funding this year. This came on the back of cuts in previous years. The best example was Revenue Support Grant – it was £4m in 15/16 and was now 0. Only 20% of the Council’s funding per head came from Government compared to a national average of 40%. The Council continued to lobby on this point as it was unfair.

· The Government response to funding cuts was to allow Council to raise an additional 1% in council tax. If the Council did this (and the proposal from Cabinet was that Council raised council tax by 4.99%), the extra council tax of £1.6m would effectively replace the lost Government funding but it would not be enough to meet the pressures the Council was seeing on costs.

· Members would prefer to avoid raising council tax – but the loss of funding put the Council in a difficult position. The report itself showed that the consequences of not raising council tax to the full amount were significant over the medium term.

· Like all councils Rutland did not want to spend more than it needed to and it prided itself on being low cost but it now faced uncontrollable costs of c£1m arising from increases in inflation and a proposed pay award (agreed nationally).

· On top of these pressures, there were service pressures of over £1m. £522k related to children’s care services where the Council had seen costs increase over 100% since 11/12. Keeping children safe in Rutland is costing more than ever before but was something which was very important to all.

· So despite the fact that the Council had come up with savings of over £1.3m, it was still left with a budget that was increasing.

· This meant therefore that despite proposed council tax increases, the Council would still have to use its reserves to balance the budget.

The financial outlook over the coming years remained challenging – it looked like there would be no more funding but the Council would continue to lobby to get the best deal it could and do its utmost to protect front line services. The Council knew that it faced a financial gap in the future and this was something which it wanted to resolve. The Council’s plan for this was to:

· Close the gap in a measured way – there was no need for drastic action

· Continue to look for savings as it had ... view the full minutes text for item 538

To receive Report No.8/2018 from the Director for Resources.