Agenda item

Report of the Chief Finance Officer

The Chairman introduced this late addition to the agenda.

The Group Accountant introduced the report and appendices which had been circulated at the start of the meeting.

During summer 2010 additional budget consultation was undertaken.  This consultation consisted of 21 road shows in various venues across the town.

Residents were asked to use sticky dots to identify services they thought should be ‘protected’, ‘reduced’ and ‘stopped’ and during this process over 21,000 sticky dots were used.  Residents found it easier to mark services to protect and reduce but much more difficult to mark those to stop.  Officers and Members had been able to answer most of the questions raised by residents.  “Back office” costs had been included in all of the costs shown as it was impossible to run services without them. 

This was not a scientific exercise but did engage the public. The two A3 appendices showed the results from this consultation, ranked in order, one in chart form and one in a table with figures. 

At this point Cabinet Member Finance and Community Development noted that Cabinet had agreed a budget strategy on the 26 October 2010 and were expecting a draft budget for consideration by the 14 or 21 December 2010.  The date depended on when the settlement details were received from Government. 

The gap had been £2.6million, was now £2.75million and was heading towards £3million and there were two components to this, the long term structural gap was a result of the council tax cap and the financial crisis, both of which had a great impact.

It was hoped that this could be addressed in the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) through commissioning, shared services, establishing Trusts and Charities and working with other organisations. 

It was important to note that the current budget deficit was not just a result of the financial crisis.  The services CBC provided were not being sufficiently funded by central government or council tax and this had been the case for some time. 

Members made the following comments;

• The suggestion was that members could have predicted the results of the public consultation, those front facing services which everyone benefited from would be saved (waste collection, etc).  
• It was a good exercise, from which CBC got some good PR, but there was room for improvement.  Some Officers weren’t asking if the ‘residents’ lived in Cheltenham.
• It would be beneficial to include last year’s figures, in order to allow identification of loss of income, etc.  The budget should be broken down into needs and wants.
• The true value of certain things should be included, where residents get more for their money as CBC facilitates things and as such the value increases.
• Residents were sending a clear message and how were CBC going to address that.  Whilst the amounts involved were very small, it would be unwise to ignore the public.
• The clear message was that residents didn’t necessarily want services stopped but rather, that they be done differently.

The Chairman invited members to highlight specific areas for consideration by the Cabinet Member.

The following suggestions were made by individual members of the committee;

• If some of the money spent on public toilets went as a contribution to others, such as retailers, pubs and restaurants.  This would negate the need to provide them and generate a saving.
• Cabinet needed to take a holistic view of back office services and look at whether things could be done differently.
• There were some difficult decisions for Cabinet which could lead to job losses and the suggestion was, start by looking at non-statutory services, specifically Pest Control.
• There was a Council in the South West which had closed it’s public toilets and instead created a directory of toilets that people could use.
• Services like Food Standards and Pest Control could be done better/differently, perhaps with other local authorities.
• Moving from bi-annual elections would save £160k every election year.
• Cultural Management should not be dismissed because it had not worked in the past, with the Town Hall, Leisure@, etc, there was scope, that could not be ignored.
• The Strategic Partnerships did not add value and CBC should disengage now.
• Twinning should be delivered by the community rather than the local authority.  If it was important to residents they could take responsibility.

Cabinet Member Finance and Community Development was grateful for the positive comments and suggestions from the committee.  Whilst the public consultation had shone a light on certain areas, the key would be the strength of the arguments for and against.  Politics apart, arguments mattered.

The commissioning agenda would allow for services to be repackaged and done differently and O&S would have a role to play. 

The public toilets in Cheltenham were not in good condition, were expensive to run and the long term maintenance costs were excessive.  Others had outsourced them, most recently Gloucester City, but the arguments for closing them needed to be balanced against public opinion. 

The Chairman confirmed that the detailed budget proposals would be the main focus of the next meeting of the committee (10 January 2010).