To receive Report No.89/2021 from the Cabinet on recommendations referred to the Council for determination.

Councillor K Payne, Portfolio Holder for Finance, gave an introduction which covered Report No.64/2021 – Budget Savings 21/22 and Report No.66/2021 – Revenue and Capital Outturn Report.  Having listened to the comments from colleagues in Scrutiny, Councillor Payne announced that they would like to withdraw the third recommendation outlined in Report No.64/2021 which asked for delegated authority to be given to the Chief Finance Officer, in consultation with the Chief Executive, Leader and Portfolio Holder to spend up to £500k to allow savings projects to be accelerated. Instead requests would be made on a case by case basis rather than for a sum up front.

A vote was taken on the remaining recommendations as outlined in Report No. 64/2021 and 22 voted in favour and 1 abstention.

RESOLVED:

Council

1.    APPROVED the principles (in para 2.2.2) to guide future work and decision making in respect of budget savings;

2.    APPROVED budget savings of £598k to be applied in 21/22 and changes to funding of £613k;

3.    NOTED the provisional position on the 20/21 outturn (para 2.6) and that the provisional underspend does not change the projected gap of £2.7m for 22/23.

A further vote was taken on the recommendations as outlined in Report No.66/2021and there voted 22 in favour and 1 abstention.

RESOLVED:

Council

1.    APPROVED the 21/22 budget adjustments for new grant income of £1.567m and planned expenditure of £1.458m as per Appendix E1.

2.    APPROVED the setting up of one new reserve for donations received as detailed in section 3.5.3.

3.    NOTED potential future pressures highlighted in Appendix G

4.    NOTED changes to the capital programme as per Section 4 and Appendix F

5.    NOTED the revised MTFP in Appendix I (which assumes that Cabinet/Council will approve decisions recommended in this report and the Budget Savings report 64/2021)

6.    NOTED that view of the Council’s s151 Officer that the positive outturn position does not change the financial challenge facing the Council and that action is needed quickly to reduce reliance on reserves.

Councillor Stephenson, Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Communities, Environment and Climate Change introduced Report No.65/2021 – Highways Capital Programme: Second allocation 2021/22.

A vote was taken on the recommendation and there were 22 votes in favour and 1 abstention.

Council RESOLVED:

1.     That the spend of the Department for Transports (DfT) for the balance of the Highways Maintenance Block funding allocation, and both the Capital Pot Hole and Incentive funds received, as well as the carried forward £106,000, to the value of £1,487,000 is used for proactive highway drainage, Bridges, Street Lighting structural survey, carriageway and footway works as per Appendix A.