Agenda item

A proposed draft 2022/23 revenue budget and capital programme for the Committee was presented. This explained that, due to current capacity constraints, a pragmatic approach had been taken regarding the distribution of pressures and savings to achieve a balanced budget position for 2022/23, namely:

Tranche 1 – savings and pressures which were straightforward to allocate.

Tranche 2 – those requiring more time to allocate correctly to each committee, including £367k of pressures (£193k of staffing increments and £174k of contract inflation) plus savings of £200k regarding staff vacancies. These were being held as ‘corporate items’ pending consideration during the next cycle of committee meetings.

     Tranche 3 – the more complex cross-cutting savings totalling £450k, which would require service reviews and business cases to ensure accurate distribution to committees. The recently established Benefits Board would oversee this process to ensure that the benefits were being defined, owned and delivered.  These budgeted savings were being held as ‘corporate items’ pending consideration during the June cycle of committee meetings.

Officers responded to questions about the reassignment of salary costs within the services falling under the Committee’s remit. During the debate, Councillors requested that the following information be provided to Committee members after the meeting:

·      a breakdown of the ‘Council Offices major works’ element of the capital programme to highlight why provision has increased from £25,000 in 21/22 to £50,000 in 22/23 (this provision is part of a 25-year planned maintenance programme to enable compliance with legislative and health & safety requirements)

·      a breakdown of the ‘IT hardware / infrastructure / projects’ element of the capital programme

·      an explanation of the increased revenue costs allocated to legal services for 2021/22 (from £346,400 to £530,600) 

            R E S O L V E D – that

A.      the restructure of 2021/22 budgets between Strategy & Resources and corporate items to realign spend between Strategy & Resources and corporate items be agreed to ensure it is correctly reflected, and to take account of some of the recommendations from the Grant Thornton review - this will provide a stable basis for the 2022/23 budget and will ensure opening balances are correct (Appendix C refers);

B.      the Strategy & Resources draft revenue budget for 2022/23 of £6.3m as attached at Appendix D, which takes account of pressures and savings allocated as part of Tranche 1, be agreed, and it be noted that two further tranches of pressures and savings currently held in corporate items on behalf of other Committees will be distributed over the coming months;

C.      the corporate items (£0.6m) in the draft revenue budget for 2022/23 (Appendix D) be agreed and it be noted that two further tranches of pressures and savings currently held in corporate items on behalf of other Committees will be distributed over the coming months;

D.      the Committee’s final Capital Programme for 2022/23 at Appendix E, in the sum of £1.8m, be agreed;

E.      the subjective revenue budgets in Appendix F, noting movements from 2020/21 to 2022/23 and an estimated movement to 2023/24, be noted;

F.      it be noted that, due to timing and capacity constraints across the Council, c£0.7m of savings (as part of a £1.1m savings programme) and c£0.4m of pressures could not be allocated in time for January and February committee cycle and, as such, they will be allocated in three tranches as follows:

·                Tranche 1 which are directly attributable to the committee have been allocated as per Appendix D;

·                Tranche 2 will be brought to the March committee cycle for approval; and

·                Tranche 3 will be overseen and monitored by the Benefits Board and will be brought to the June committee cycle for approval.

A C T I O N :