Issue - meetings

To submit a report by the Head of Function (Resources) on the Executive’s final budget proposals to the County Council.

RESOLVED

●  Tonote the formal consultation meetings on the budget as outlined in paragraph 4.1 of the report;

●  Tonote the equalities impact assessment summary on the budget proposals in Section 7 of the report;

●  Toagree that, within the proposed budget, schools are given an increase in budget which meets the Welsh Government’s pledge for schools’ funding as detailed in paragraph 4.1.3 of the report;

●  To agree the final details of the Council’s proposed budget, investments, pressures and savings as shown in Appendices 1-5 of the report;

●  Tonote the Section 151 Officer’s recommendations that minimum Council Fund Balances be maintained at £5m, the confirmation of the robustness of the estimates underlying the proposals and the adequacy of the General Reserves in the context of other earmarked reserves;

●  Toconfirm the adjustments detailed within the table at Paragraph 4.2.3 of the report;

●  To recommend a net budget for the County Council and resulting Council Tax to Council, noting that a formal resolution including the North Wales Police and Community Councils’ precepts will be presented to Council on 27 February, 2014;

●  Toauthorise the Section 151 Officer to make such changes as may be necessary before submission to the Council.    

(The Committee Services Manager declared an interest in Paragraph 5.13 of the report (voluntary redundancy) and remained at the meeting.                                                                                      

Reported by the Portfolio Holder for Finance on the proposed final budget proposals together with a review of the medium term revenue budget strategy.

Reported – That the report showed the detailed revenue budget proposals requiring final review and agreement for 2014-15 and the resulting impact on the County Council’s budget. These were matters for the Council to agree and the Executive were asked to make final recommendations to the Council. The report also updated the latest Medium Term Financial Strategy which provided a context for work on the Council’s future budgets and included the latest information for the efficiency strategy.

The report paid particular reference to the following matters:-

● The Council’s Revenue Budget and Council Tax 2014-15 recommendations;

● Consultation on the draft budget proposals (detailed at Paragraph 4.1.1 and 4.3.6 of the report).

Revenue Budget 2014-15

The initial draft revenue budget was presented to the Executive in December 2013 which presented a draft standstill position budget, highlighting a potential gap of £7.661m between the standstill position and the total of the Aggregated Exchequer Funding and 5% increase in Council Tax.

The report also referred to the ongoing work to identify the savings required across all Departments, which would not necessarily be split evenly between all Directorates.

Since the draft budget proposals were presented to the Executive on 16^th December 2013 a number of issues had emerged which required amendments to the proposals and these were summarised at Paragraph 4.2.3 of the report. The Executive was requested to confirm these adjustments.

●Savings– The Executive were informed on 15 July, 2013 that there was a projected funding gap of up to £7.511m in 2014-15 which equated to a percentage reduction in budgets of 5.4%. Different options for savings profiles were presented, showing the target reductions that would be set at different percentage levels if applied evenly across the board with further columns showing the effect of protection for particular services. The base percentage which produced the required total saving was 7.2%. Following further discussions at Member and Officer level since that date, a final list of proposed savings had been drawn up which was summarised at Paragraph 4.3.5 of the report and set out in detail at Appendix C of the report. The total required from the Services now equated to £7.416m.

Various matters were raised during the scrutiny and consultation process and these were summarised at Paragraph 4.3.6. of the report. In addition, Directorates had carried out further work to prioritise and review their proposals and the revised savings total now stood at £6.263m, a reduction of £1.153m over the proposals submitted to the Executive in December. (Appendix 2 of the report referred).

●Pressures and Growth – the report to the Executive on 16^th December included allowances for pressures and growth totalling £1.136m and £276k respectively.  There had been four changes to these figures and these were detailed at Paragraph 4.4.1 of the report. Further details of growth and pressures were shown at Appendices 3 and 4  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5