Issue - meetings

Budget and Medium Term Financial Strategy - KEY/13NOV12/03

Meeting: 06/02/2013 - Joint Meeting of the Scrutiny Committees and Commissions (Item 3)

3 Budget 2013/2014 and Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) to 2022/23 PDF 55 KB

MEMBERS ARE REMINDED TO BRING THEIR COPY OF THE BUDGET 2013/14 AND MEDIUM TERM FINANCIAL PLAN TO 2022/23 DATED 4 FEBRUARY 2013 TO THE MEETING.

Minutes:

The Chair welcomed everyone present and explained that the purpose of the meeting was to provide an opportunity for all Members of each Scrutiny Committee and Commission to scrutinise the 2013/14 Budget and Medium Term Financial Plan to 2022/23 as part of the formal consultation process before being presented to Cabinet for approval on 25 February 2013.

Members were given an overview of the Medium Term Financial Plan and Budget by the Cabinet Member for Resources. The following key points were highlighted:

• Overview and overall budget strategy

• Detailed proposals for:

– Adult Social Care

– Chief Executive’s

– Children’s services

– Operations

– Strategic Resources (inc. Strategic Commissioning)

– Public Health

– Staff Implications

– Capital Strategy, Asset Management Plan and Treasury Strategy

• Priorities

• Spending Review – Year 3

• Pressures and Investment

• Overall financial position

• Tackling the financial gap

• Income

• Implications for council tax

• Reserves, balances and risk

• Consultation meetings timetable and next steps

Each section of the budget was then taken in order according to how it was presented in the Budget Book. A brief introduction was given by the relevant Cabinet Member for each section before taking questions from the Committee.

Questions and observations were made around the following areas:

Budget Section	Question / Comment	Response
Item 4 Introduction of the Budget and Overall Budget Strategy	Would the Cabinet like to comment on temporarily reducing the level of £6M in Reserves? This might then alleviate the level of expenditure cuts.	If the reserves were used it would be a ‘one off’. Reserves might be used to ease in certain cuts. However this would mean that if there were pressures in the future the council would not be in such a strong position to deal with them. Under the new funding regime it could be argued that more than £6m would be required for reserves. If a decision was taken to use some of the reserves there would have to be a plan in place to quickly get the reserves back to £6m. This would mean adding to the pain of the financial recovery in 2014/2015. The £6m reserve should not be taken below that figure for any longer than a two year period.
The Capacity Building Reserve would seem to be covering the same eventualities as the General Fund. Could the Capacity Building Reserve be included in the General Fund which would mean that the £981k could come out of the General Reserve Budget?	The General Fund and Capacity Building Fund were two different funds. Capacity Building included such things as redundancy costs. The General Fund was used for risks that were run throughout the year. The funds could be rolled together into the £6m had it not been for the fact that the fund had been used every year to significantly deal with staffing reductions and redundancies to meet the budget. The Capacity Building Fund was the lowest it had ever been.
Currently the estimated balance ... view the full minutes text for item 3

Budget Section

Question / Comment

Response

Item 4

Introduction of the Budget and

Overall Budget Strategy

Would the Cabinet like to comment on temporarily reducing the level of £6M in Reserves? This might then alleviate the level of expenditure cuts.

If the reserves were used it would be a ‘one off’. Reserves might be used to ease in certain cuts. However this would mean that if there were pressures in the future the council would not be in such a strong position to deal with them.

Under the new funding regime it could be argued that more than £6m would be required for reserves. If a decision was taken to use some of the reserves there would have to be a plan in place to quickly get the reserves back to £6m. This would mean adding to the pain of the financial recovery in 2014/2015. The £6m reserve should not be taken below that figure for any longer than a two year period.

The Capacity Building Reserve would seem to be covering the same eventualities as the General Fund. Could the Capacity Building Reserve be included in the General Fund which would mean that the £981k could come out of the General Reserve Budget?

The General Fund and Capacity Building Fund were two different funds. Capacity Building included such things as redundancy costs. The General Fund was used for risks that were run throughout the year.

The funds could be rolled together into the £6m had it not been for the fact that the fund had been used every year to significantly deal with staffing reductions and redundancies to meet the budget. The Capacity Building Fund was the lowest it had ever been.

Currently the estimated balance ... view the full minutes text for item 3

Meeting: 04/02/2013 - Cabinet (Item 3)

3 Budget and Medium Term Financial Strategy* PDF 2 MB