Agenda item

Draft Budget 2020-21, Council Tax Precept and Medium Term Financial Plan 2020-25

Minutes:

Note: an updated copy of ‘Table 4 – Council Tax Precepts’ on page 60 of the Agenda Pack was circulated ahead of the meeting.  The figures are set out below:

 

 

 

1.99%

Unitary Council

Taxbase

Increase

 

 

£

Cheshire East

 

152,597.84

   12,099,483.00

Cheshire West and Chester

 

123,713.30

     9,809,228.00

Halton

 

35,359.00

     2,803,615.00

Warrington

 

68,464.00

     5,428,511.00

 

 

380,134.14

  30,140,837.00

 

The Treasurer presented the report which asked Members to:

 

·         Approve the Authority’s Medium Term Financial Plan 2020/25

·         Agree the Authority’s budget for 2020/21

·         Agree the Authority’s Council Tax precept for 2020/21 as required by law

·         Approve the Authority’s Capital Programme and funding

·         Approve the Authority’s Capital Strategy

·         Approve the Authority’s Reserves Strategy

 

The Treasurer informed Members that officers were proposing a council tax increase of 1.99%.  The Medium Term Financial Plan and Reserves Strategy 2020/25 appended to the report reflected the assumption of a council tax increase of 1.99%.

 

He referred Members to ‘Table 1: Financing of the Proposed Net Revenue Budget’ at paragraph 8 of the report which provided an overview of the Authority’s overall funding position.  An increase of 1.99% in the council tax precept would generate an additional £1m income compared to 2019/20, based on the increased council taxbase of Band D equivalent properties.  With the inclusion of other elements of funding, such as revenue support grant and business rate income, the overall net revenue budget would increase by £1.369m compared to the previous year.

 

The Treasurer referred Members to ‘Table 2 – Construction of Proposed 2020-21 Revenue Budget’ which showed proposed adjustments to the revenue budget.  He indicated that the increase in funding of approx. £1.3m would not be sufficient to balance the budget, therefore savings proposals of £2.4m had been identified to ensure that planned spending matched the level of proposed resources.  Appendix 2C to the report contained details of proposed savings for 2020/21.

 

Permanent growth for 2020/21 was contained within Appendix 2A to the report and one-off growth items for 2020/21 were detailed in Appendix 2B to the report. 

 

A Member referred to Appendix 2A to the report and queried why Service Delivery was running over establishment.  The Chief Fire Officer and Chief Executive informed Members that, due to previous years when recruitment had not taken place, there was a risk that the Service could have experience/skills shortages as a result of retirements over the next few years.  To enable the Service to mitigate this risk, a strategy was deployed to temporarily over-establish ahead of any experience/skills shortage occurring to ensure that there were sufficient numbers of trained firefighters to work alongside any new recruits.  The Treasurer informed Members that, with the volume of retirements and leavers expected over the next few years, the overspend was expected to reduce. In the meantime, a contribution had been built into reserves to cover the cost.

 

A Member referred to paragraphs 20 and 24 within the report, highlighting that she was pleased to see that the Government had awarded an additional grant to the Service to assist with firefighter pension costs.  She also welcomed the environmental focus of several of the growth items listed in Appendix 2A.

 

A Member queried what the £18k increase listed in Appendix 2A for ‘Equality, diversity and inclusion – supplies and services budget’ would be utilised for.  The Director of Transformation informed Members that there was currently no dedicated non-pay budget for the Service’s equality, diversity and inclusion work.  The £18k would be utilised to fund events, conferences, networking activity and any other non-pay supplies/services linked to the promotion of equality, diversity and inclusion.

 

RESOLVED: That

 

[1]       the Medium Term Financial Plan as set out in Appendix 1 be approved;

[2]       the Budget Requirement of £44.830m for 2020/21 (as set out in Table 1, paragraph 8) which takes account of adjustments for inflation, growth, one off items and savings (as set out in Table 2, paragraph 12 and Appendices 2a, 2b and 2c respectively) be agreed;

[3]       the proposed council tax increase of 1.99% (which represents a Band D council tax precept of £79.29) for 2020/21 be agreed;

[4]       the council tax precepts set out in the updated Table 4, be agreed;

[5]       the proposed capital programme for 2020/21 set out in Table 3, paragraph 26 together with its associated financing be approved;

[6]       the Capital Strategy set out in Appendix 3 be approved;

[7]       the Reserves Strategy set out in Appendix 4 be approved;

[8]       the Statement of Robustness of Estimates set out in Appendix 5 be noted; and

[9]       the Financial Health Targets in paragraph 28 be adopted.

Supporting documents: