Agenda item

A report of the Cabinet Member Finance and Community Development and Chief Finance Officer (45 mins)

Please refer to the Cabinet budget papers of 21 December 2010 which were circulated to all members and relevant officers on 17 December 2010 as these will not be reprinted for this meeting.

The Cabinet Member Finance and Community Development introduced the report as circulated with the agenda and referred members to the budget papers circulated on the 21 December 2010.

The cuts had been greater than those initially indicated by Government as they had recalibrated the model so that places like Cheltenham took a bigger hit than authorities in areas that were more dependent on welfare services. 

The challenge for Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) was how to deliver services differently whilst maintaining effectiveness, but reducing expenditure. The council had had to find economies amounting to £3 million to reduce the current revenue budget to the required £14 million.

He highlighted that the Medium Term Financial Strategy identified that cuts would be required over the next 4 years. 

He highlighted the 92 specific initiatives to address the deficit set out in appendix 4 and set out the rationale. An equality impact assessment and risk assessment had been carried out on each one. He acknowledged that some of cuts would be controversial including:

·        the end to free travel for the over 60s between 9 and 9.30 am for the reasons set out in para 3.5 of the report

·        the end of taxi vouchers for the disabled

·        a move to sustainable planting in some parts of the town

·        the closure of some public toilets

·        a reduction in grass verge cutting

·        reduction in the Cheltenham Festivals Grant

·        reduced grants to the Regeneration Partnerships over the next five years

·        charging for green waste

·        a cut in the civic budgets for the mayor and twinning.

He concluded that balancing the budget was concerned with making choices and said that if members wished to suggest any alternative proposals for cuts these would be seriously considered.

The chair commended the Cabinet Member for coming up with a balanced budget which provided the minimum reduction in Front Line services and invited members to suggest any alternatives. 

A member commented that the budget focused on making cuts and it needed to focus more on income. A more innovative approach to income generation should be adopted and the council should seek to remove any obstacles which currently made sponsorship arrangements very difficult to put in place.

In response the Cabinet Member Finance did not accept the suggestion that there was a large amount of potential income being missed through lack of sponsorship and innovation. There were government limitations on profitability with regard to charges e.g. regarding planning fees and sponsorship would never contribute major sums.

Another member raised the decision to charge for the discretionary service for collecting garden waste. If the policy was that ‘those who do not consume the service should not pay for it’, would this be adopted for other discretionary services. He also commented that the take-up for the garden waste service was not very high and asked what impact this would have on the budget?

In response the Cabinet Member Finance advised that there had been 4000 applications so far and 16,000 had been predicted. He anticipated that applications would increase as the growing season started. He considered that garden waste was a discretionary service and therefore it was quite legitimate to make a charge for it. Other non-statutory services such as leisure facilities were funded partly through charges, partly through investment of reinvested capital and prudential borrowing. He rejected the suggested policy and said that the council’s strategy should be to decide what services they would provide and then decide how they would fund them.

In response to a question whether a variable take-up rate for garden waste could result in some areas having a very costly pickup for the number of properties involved, the Cabinet Member said there was a risk but the experience of Tewkesbury and Cotswold had been positive. He would expect the risk to be less in an urban area such as Cheltenham compared with the rural areas covered by those councils.

In response to a comment regarding the cut in providing free dog bags and the suggestion that making a small charge for them might prevent an increase of dog mess problems in the parks, the Cabinet Member Finance and Community Development suggested that the administration involved would be more costly than providing them free of charge. The council had also discovered that the bags were not biodegradable. There would be a reliance on enforcement officers but he acknowledged that it was a bad idea to rely on enforcement being the only solution.

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member Finance and Community Development and Financial Services for their attendance.