Agenda item

Report of Chief Executive (enclosed)

The Executive Member for Resources will be present at the meeting to answer any questions of the Committee.

The Committee considered a report which had been presented at the Executive Cabinet meeting on 21 January, on the draft budget position for the medium term that set out the budget position for 2016/17 including the forecast for the following two years to 2018/19 and also presented the relevant proposals in respect of:

·                      Potential investment in the Council’s Corporate Strategy priorities in 2016/17

·                      Increasing budget resilience in the longer term and structuring the budget, taking into account the Spending Review (SR 2015)

·                      Providing funds to support the transitional period of the fundamental service review being undertaken by Lancashire County Council

·                      Budget consultation

Councillor Peter Wilson, Executive Member for Resources attended the meeting to give an overview of the proposals and answer any questions of the Committee.

It had been proposed that Council Tax be frozen in 2016/17.  This would be the fourth consecutive year that the current administration had achieved a balanced budget position for the forthcoming financial year without increasing Council Tax.

Due to the successful implementation of the MTFS, budget efficiency savings totalling £0.214m had been applied to the budget to achieve a balanced budget position for 2016/17.  This had mainly been achieved by the Council entering into a Business Rates Retention Pooling agreement within Lancashire effective from 1 April 2016.

In addition, contributions to the New Investment Packages for 2016/17, totalling £2.845m for both Revenue and Capital projects, the New Homes Bonus also provided an opportunity for the Council to invest in three other additional areas to protect public services within the borough and increase financial resilience given the revolutionary funding changes.

A budget of £0.500m would be available for the next two years to assist in the transactional period public services currently provided for and funded by Lancashire County Council and a £0.500m provision per annum to increase General Balances to mitigate against the financial risk of a core grant income shift to 100% local taxation sources.  £0.603m was also available to be used to invest in projects that would provide income streams to the Council.

Potential investment proposals were summarised in the report and set out in detail in project mandates.  Funding had been achieved by not building all the New Homes Bonus income received since 2013/14 into the base budget.  An approach taken to enable the Council flexibility and resilience in order to address the volatile and variable nature of future core funding which continued to be under review by central government.  The latest round of projects would bring the total new investment on the Council’s corporate priorities to £12.008m since 2013/14.

The consultation on the proposed budget focused on obtaining feedback on the key investment areas in order to help priorities activity.  It would also highlight the impact of a reduction in Council funds and seek the views of residents on the budget.  The consultation would invite responses from residents, partners, parish groups and other stakeholders through a variety of methods which included a short survey.  The results would be analysed and published in February for consideration as part of budget finalisation.

Members of the Committee highlighted various aspects of the report, which included the forecasted figures for the Market Walk project in light of the reduction of units available. The Executive Member for Resources explained the reasoning behind not reducing the forecast for Market Walk at this time.    

In response to concerns raised about the loss made in respect of Chorley Flower Show, the Executive Member for Resources confirmed that there had been a 3% overspend. However, as it had been the first time Chorley had hosted the flower show and the weather had not been ideal; the event had been considered a success making approximately £30k.  It was clarified that it was not the intention to compete with other flower shows in the area, but to capitalise on their popularity.  There had been awareness that the event could make a loss in its first year but that it was an investment in the future.  Lessons learned from the event would be implemented for this year’s Show, which would include a discount for booking tickets in advance.

A full debate on the proposals would take place at the Council meeting on 1 March.

The Chair thanked the Executive Member for Resources for attending the meeting.

AGREED – That the report be noted.