Issue - meetings

Report of the Chief Finance Officer

The Chief Finance Officer referred Members to the Budget papers as circulated with the agenda. He explained that under Section 25 of the Local Government Act 2003 he was required to report to the Council on the robustness of the estimates made for the purposes of setting the Budget and the adequacy of the proposed financial reserves.

The Council was under a statutory obligation to have regard to this report when making its decisions on the proposed Budget. 

The Chief Finance Officer gave a presentation on his Section 25 report (copies of this presentation are available from Democratic Services).

The Chief Finance Officer then responded to questions on the report as follows;

• A member queried whether the £197k grant from the Government in respect of the Council Tax freeze could be jeopardised if Parish Councils were to raise their Council Tax?
  • The grant was independent of the County Council, Police Authority and Parish Councils precepts.
• What was the breakdown of the £500k reported reduction in target for car parking income? 
  • The shortfall was made up of £365k of parking fees and £135k of fines.
• Should members be concerned about the organisation’s capacity to deliver on the Bridging the Gap programme (BtG) referred to in section 5.12 and did this present a major risk? 

·        The section 25 report was emphasising the challenge of the programme and resources were closely monitored. £80K of additional capacity building funding had been agreed by Council as part of the Section 4 report on commissioning to target resource hot-spots. 

• Did the statement in section 8.5 imply some risks were not being addressed and if so which ones?

·        Significant risks were detailed in the Corporate Risk Register. Risk management was now far more embedded in the organisation and in services and the corporate risk register was reviewed on a monthly basis by the Senior Leadership Team.

·        What had happened the £1.6m returned to the Council to date from the Icelandic Banks and where would any future recoveries be used?

·        Why was the Section 151 Officer insisting that the reserves were not be used to off set cuts despite the comments of the Secretary of State?

·        What were the CFO’s views on the use of prudential borrowing to further waste management as detailed in the budget report?

Report of the Chief Finance Officer 

Resolved that the contents of the report be noted and that Cabinet have regard to it when making their recommendations to Council regarding the budget and level of council tax for 2011/12.

The Chief Finance Officer (CFO) introduced this report which had been circulated with the budget papers.  He explained that under Section 25 of the Local Government Act 2003 the CFO was required to report to Council on the robustness of the estimates made for the purpose of setting the budget and the adequacy of the proposed financial reserves. The Council was under a statutory obligation to have regard to this report when making decisions on the proposed budget.

The Chief Finance Officer highlighted the challenges caused by the lateness of this year’s settlement announcements. The lack of clarity from government over funding levels for future years had also added greater uncertainty to the Medium Term Financial Strategy forecasting and planning.

He also highlighted the council’s concern about the handling of concessionary fares and that the final settlement removed the total cost of £2.2 million including the local discretion and taxi vouchers that the council had opted to support. He and the Cabinet Member Finance had already met with Martin Horwood MP to lobby for the retention of the estimated £171,000 cost of the local discretions funded by the Council. This may be rectified in the future but no assumption had been made in the budget proposals at this stage.

Resolved that the contents of the report be noted and that Cabinet have regard to it when making their recommendations to Council regarding the budget and level of council tax for 2011/12.