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There is no summary of this meeting yet. Summaries are written once the council publishes the minutes, which are its official record of what a meeting decided. They usually appear a few weeks after the meeting.
There were no disclosures of Personal and Prejudicial Interests.
None.
There were no public questions received.
The Leader and Ben Smith attended to give an overview and answer questions. · The draft budget proposals include savings of just under £14m and a net investment of around £50m into services. · The financial position for next year is significantly improved over and above planning assumptions whilst still carrying some significant risks. Current pressures include Social Services, homelessness and housing. · Last year, schools benefited from a one off boost of £7m in the form of the IT reserve to schools and one off support for energy costs of £4.5m, therefore the £22m boost to schools is closer to £11m in cash to cash terms. · There are concerns about the reasonableness and credibility of the future budget if there is not a significant rebalancing of the overspend position in the current year. · The final increase in Council Tax has not yet been released, however discussions were held on it being within the range of 3% to 7%. The Leader has previously stated it will not be near 10%. · The Panel requested more information on several proposed cost savings.
Part of an issue followed across 2 meetings
The Leader and Ben Smith attended to give an overview and answer questions. · There are significant pressures in Social Care and Place, primarily driven by the pressures on homelessness, and some technical pressures regarding home to school transport. This has resulted in a service overspend of £14m. · Capital and thus revenue servicing of capital financing continues to significantly underspend. · Recovery plans are in place seek to reduce the overspend as much as possible by outturn which directors and cabinet members are working to deliver. It is not expected that this will be reduced to anywhere near zero. · If services continue to overspend, there will not be the same degree of overall underspend, carried forward to contingency for 25-26 and thus no repeat of high in year protection and mitigation for 24-25 afforded for 25-26. · The projected outturn includes plans to still draw down £19m from reserves (lower than budget) but there is ongoing concern with the sustainability of using substantial draws from reserves.
Cllr David Hopkins and Suzy Richards attended to present the report and answer questions. · The officer explained the purpose of the report which is to update on progress towards meeting the Council's well-being objectives set out in the corporate plan and where corrective actions to improve performance and efficiency take place.” · The Panel noted that the report is not a live document and provides a snapshot of performance. · The Panel noted that the risks around safeguarding, connecting care and disabled facilities grants remain high. · Targets around care and support plans were noted as low.
The work plan was noted. The Panel requested a look at the financing of the big city centre projects in due course.
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