Meeting documents

To consider the report

DECISION

 

The Cabinet agreed all of the following recommendations and also recommended these recommendations to Full Council for approval to:

 

1.     Agree a gross revenue budget of £780.181m and a net revenue budget in 2019/20 of £327.967m

 

2.     Agree the application of up to £2.791m in 2019/20 of capital receipts to fund the revenue costs associated with reforming services, subject to further development and review of business cases.

 

3.     Delegate authority to the S151 Officer, in consultation with the Chief Executive and the Director for Corporate Affairs to review all business cases before agreeing to the use of capital receipts or the Invest to Save reserve.

 

4.     Agree the replenishment of depleted reserves as follows:

 

a.     Create Invest to Save earmarked reserve of £2.852m to ensure resources are available to support further service reform;

b.    Addition of £2.000m to the General Fund, from the base budget provision, to bring the balance up towards a reasonable level for a Council of this size, and;

c.     Contribute an additional £3.389m to repay the Buildings Maintenance Insurance Scheme (BMIS) and Repairs & Maintenance Fund deficit reserves as the schemes have now ended;

d.    Addition of £0.540m to the Insurance Fund to partially replenish the fund to enable it to support likely claims against the Council.

 

5.     Agree the actions required to manage the gap to be reduced to £15.112m in 2019/20:

 

·       the reversal of previously identified savings and technical adjustments totalling £18.154m as set out in paragraph 4.5 and Appendix A

·       approve the revised Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) statement and policy (Appendix B), which delivers a saving in 2019/20 of £3.714m;

·       the reduction of the corporate contingency by £0.575m to £7.226m for 2019/20;

·       the use of the additional one-off Adult Social Care grant of £2.498m to meet the requirements set out by Government for this grant;

·       the use of the additional one-off Social Care grant of £4.267m for social care pressures, and;

·       approve the removal of the staff unpaid leave saving of £0.454m following rejection of the proposal by the Unions.

 

6.     Consider the proposed treatment of the minor funding changes following receipt of the Final Financial Settlement received on 29 January 2019 and the potential use of these additional resources as set out in Table 2 of this report.

 

7.     Agree the proposals for change (as set out in Appendices D and E1-E5 – subject to any amendments agreed by recommendation 6 above) necessary to set a balanced budget for 2019/20, totalling £8.512m, and delegated the implementation to the relevant director(s) following due process.

 

8.     Agree that due regards have been taken to any equalities implications identified and risk implications prior to any decision being taken in relation to the recommendations in this report, noting the initial equalities impacts as set out in Appendix C.

 

9.     Agree that the savings target relating to Waste Disposal costs (£225k) is endorsed to the Somerset Waste Board to consider agreeing to make savings to this value as part of setting its 2019/20 budget.

 

10. Agree the Strategy for the Flexible use of Capital Receipts (CRF) as set out in this report, in section 4.40.

 

11.Agree to keep the Scheme of Members’ Allowances unchanged for 2019/20.

 

12. Note that the Leader of the Council, Cabinet Member for Resources, Chief Executive and Section 151 Officer will oversee and monitor the delivery of the proposals for change and report on progress as part of the budget monitoring reports.

 

13.Delegate authority for the development of any additional alternative proposals for change that may be necessary to the Chief Executive in consultation with the Section 151 Officer and relevant Director(s).

 

14.Agree that the Cabinet and the Council have reviewed and confirmed that account has been taken of the Section 151 Officer’s assessment of the robustness of estimates and adequacy of reserves as set out in section 6 of this report.

 

15.Agree the Reserves and Balances Policy Statement in Appendix K

 

16. Agree to increase the level of the general Council Tax by 2.99%, which will provide a further £7.073m to support the Councils expenditure.

 

17. Agree to increase Council Tax by a further 1% for the adult social care precept, which will provide a further £2.365m to support the growth in demand for services.

 

18. Agree to continue the Council Tax precept of £12.84 within the base budget for the shadow Somerset Rivers Authority (representing no increase). This results in a Council Tax Requirement of £2.547m

 

19.Agree to set the County Council precept for band D Council Tax at £1,239.73 which represents a 3.99% uplift. This is a rise of £0.91 per week for a Band D property, as set out in Appendix H.

 

20.Note that the amount of council tax payable for dwellings listed by valuation band, calculated in accordance with the proportion set out in Section 5(1) of the Local Government Act 1992, shall be as follows:

 

Valuation Band	Amount (£)
A	826.48
B	964.23
C	1,101.98
D	1,239.73
E	1,515.23
F	1,790.72
G	2,066.22
H	2,479.46

 

21.Agree that the district councils are requested to make payments totalling £245.955m to Somerset County Council of sums due under precepts calculated in proportion to their council tax Band D equivalents as follows:

 

 

District	Total Precept (£)
Mendip District Council	50,204,179.15
Sedgemoor District Council	50,839,974.83
South Somerset District Council	74,713,671.47
Somerset West & Taunton	70,196,974.55
Total	245,954,800.00

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22. Note that the district councils are required to make payments of precept by equal instalments of the above sums on the following dates:

 

18	April	2019		18	October	2019
22	May	2019		18	November	2019
21	June	2019		17	December	2019
22	July	2019		20	January	2020
20	August	2019		18	February	2020
19	September	2019		18	March	2020

 

23. Additionally, note that payments be made by the district councils (or to them) in respect of the estimated surplus/(deficit) on their collection funds by the 31 March 2019*

 

*although the final value of both the Council Tax and Business Rates collection fund surplus/(deficit) have yet to be confirmed by districts, the Council has estimated a surplus of £3.000m for the council tax collection fund and a break-even (£nil) position for the business rates. Late changes to the funding levels for the Council are proposed to be reflected as set out elsewhere in this addendum.

 

24. Agree to maintain the Council Tax rate set above after the Final Local Government Settlement.

 

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED: As set out in the officer report

 

REASON FOR DECISION: As set out in the officer report