Agenda item

Cabinet adopted draft Revenue and Capital Estimates for 2020/21 at its meeting on 8 January 2020.  A joint meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees reviewed those budgets on 15 January and the Housing Review Board considered the Housing Revenue Account budgets on 23 January. Recommendations from those meetings are detailed in this report and the minutes are contained on the agenda. 

The Strategic Lead Finance presented the Revenue and Capital Estimates for 2020/21. Cabinet adopted draft Revenue and Capital Estimates for 2020/21 at its meeting on 8 January 2020. A joint meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees reviewed those budgets on 15 January and the Housing Review Board considered the Housing Revenue Account budgets on 23 January.

Cabinet agreed the following recommendations from the Joint Overview and Scrutiny (Minute 6 refers);

2. Include within the Finance Key Service Objectives that it should ‘carry out an urgent review of the Capital Strategy and Allocations Group, specifically the fitness for purpose of the climate change matrix which is used to determine the fate of applications’ in light of the CSAG decision over providing open space at Brixington.

3. Include within the Finance Key Service Objectives wording on the Commercialisation Strategy to say ‘Enable officer to prepare plans to execute commercialisation in priority areas to deliver the Commercialisation Strategy.’

4. Include two additional Key Service Objectives for Governance & Licensing namely, ‘Enable enhanced meeting management through fully utilising the Bosch equipment in the Chamber by implementing electronic voting and speaker queuing’ and ‘Assess options for live-streaming and / or webcasting of meetings and virtual member attendance at meetings’.

5. In the Place, Assets and Commercialisation Service to replace the word ‘target’ with ‘approach’ in relation to Asset Transfer to Towns and Parishes.

6. In the Planning Service include a Key Service Objective in relation to ensuring proper Construction Environment Management Plans are put in place for development and then enforced robustly where necessary.

7. In the Planning Service, agree to the Key Service Objective on the carrying out of a review of the Playing Pitch Strategy, but ensure that the spirit of the Strategy, once adopted, is followed at all levels within the Council.

Cabinet determined that there should not be two additional posts in the Economic Development service and it was therefore unnecessary for the amount allocated in the budget for Climate Change Action Plan of £0.323m to be reduced by £0.100m to provide for them. Cabinet therefore did not accept recommendations 8 and 9 of Minute 6 of the Overview and Scrutiny Meeting.

Cabinet agreed the recommendations in Minutes 51, 52 and 53 of the Housing Review Board from the meeting of the 23rd January 2020.

As part of the Prudential Code for Capital Finance in Local Authorities the Council was required to set prudential indicators as part of its budget setting process, these indicators were detailed in the Treasury Management Strategy 2020/21 – Minimum Revenue Provision Policy Statement and Annual Investment Strategy contained in the report for members’ consideration.

Alongside the Treasury Management Strategy sits the Capital Strategy which was also contained in the agenda for adoption.

RECOMMENDED: to Council to approve:

1.     the Net Revenue General Fund Budget of £14.777m,

2.     a Council Tax increase of £5 a year giving a Band D council tax of £146.78 a year for 2020/21,

3.     the Housing Revenue Account Estimates with a net surplus of £0.927m and,

4.     the Net Capital Budget totalling £8.069m for 2020/21.

REASON:

There was a requirement for the Council to set a balanced budget for both the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account and to levy a Council Tax for 2020/21.