A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Council and councillors

Agenda item

REVENUE AND CAPITAL BUDGET 2017-18 AND MEDIUM TERM FINANCIAL PLAN

To receive Report No. 8/2017 from the Director for Resources.

Members are requested to bring their copy, distributed under separate cover.

 

·         The above report was presented to Cabinet on 10 January 2017 and the recommendations within the report were approved.

 

·         Cabinet has requested that Scrutiny review and comment on proposals before the Cabinet on 14 February 2017 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.

 

 

 

Minutes:

Report No. 8/2017 was received from the Director for Resources. The purpose of the report was to present a draft budget for consultation prior to the budget being formally set in February 2017.

 

The Acting Leader, Mr Mathias, gave a brief overview of the report.  He advised members that the Council was in the second year of a four year settlement from government which significantly reduced funding provided to local authorities.  A further  reduction was due to changes in the New Homes Bonus.  Payments previously received for 6 years were being reduced to four years and a baseline of 0.4% is being introduced.  This baseline represented the percentage of new housing the government expected and authority to build therefore the New Homes Bonus would now only be paid for new builds after a deduction for the baseline.  He advised that Rutland’s MP, Sir Alan Duncan, had written to the Government on the council’s behalf requesting more funding.  He summed up stating that the 2017/18 budget was robust but that there was uncertainty beyond 2020.

 

During the discussion the following points were noted:

 

a.  That the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) is being consulted on early in 2017 and not 2018 as the report indicated.

b.  The Better Care Fund (BCF) was used increasingly to try and prevent people

from needing hospital services. Action taken to date has resulted in people leaving hospital quicker with delays reduced anda significant reduction in admissions to hospital through lower number of falls.  Mr Andrews advised that social care delays had been reduced by 80% over a 2 year period. .  Investing in prevention has seen less complex cases for the authority.

c.   Members asked if the Council received recognition from either the NHS or Government for this performance.  Mr Clifton advised that the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) was using Rutland as an example of good practice in this area.

d.  That maintained schools would be liable for the cost of the Apprenticeship Levy due to be introduced in April 2017. Members noted that education redundancies were no longer funded by the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) and sought clarification as whether this applied to all schools., Ms Greaves confirmed that this applied to maintained schools only.

e.  Statutory duties currently funded from the Education Services Grant include the Director of Children’s Services, Welfare Services and, Asset management. With Government plans to cut this funding it was thought that there may be pressure on the General Fund.  Dr O’Neill advised that policy is still evolving and the funding position is still under review.  There was an intention to be more flexible around budgeting for statutory duties and that the aim would be to avoid creating a pressure on the General Fund but it was too early to tell..  He would welcome a robust scrutiny conversation on this at a later date.

f.    Members asked whether there may be some cost pressures as a result of the BCF being frozen but no issues were anticipated as there are some under spends in the existing programme.

g.  Members asked if officers were confident that each person receiving Council funded homecare were getting value for money and were reviewed on a regular basis.  Mr Clifton advised that a review was currently being done and that the success in keeping people at home did increase pressure on domiciliary care. , A case by case review was also carried out a minimum of once per year depending on the nature of the case. If improvements were shown in any of those cases then a review would be done more often.

h.  The budget showed an increase in funding for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, Mr Andrews advised members that this was not an actual increase in the budget, but a consolidation of provision into one cost centre.

 

Mr Dale reminded members that they could still present feedback to Cabinet until 13 February 2017 with regard to the budget proposals.

 

AGREED:

 

1.       That the Panel NOTED the Report.

 

Supporting documents: