Issue - meetings

To consider the Medium Term Financial Strategy and Budget Proposals 2022/23.

The Chair said that although all the budget was important, he thought that given the circumstances of the budget reduction this would be the Committee’s focus in terms of how to proceed with the necessary cost cutting and revenue enhancement. 

Councillor Hargreaves presented the report and said he would concentrate on the General Fund and Council Tax, the MTFS for the next 5 years and matters that were discussed at the Investment Board which took place yesterday.

He said that the Commercial Strategy had been discussed at the Investment Board meeting and had provided an update on the Council’s investments along with the change of rules from the Government in December and how this would be dealt with. One area of risk that had not been included was the possibility of a debt cap from the government, who could mandate that a Council could not borrow over a certain amount.  He said that this risk was low, and the new rules were being followed, but this would be added to the main risk list document.

He said the Local Plan had a budget of £6.8m which had been set aside over a 5-year period.  He said that this budget already existed but had been brought together to make it clearer and to show how it would be spent over the years.

He said there were problems with Uttlesford Norse, this had been identified as a risk but did not present a financial risk.  He said that if money needed to be spent to resolve this problem it would come from the Housing revenue account.

The Chair asked if the 4.9% increase in rent offered value for money for the tenants considering there could be problems with service levels for repairs and maintenance.

Councillor Hargreaves said that he thought the increase did offer good value and had been agreed with the Tenants Forum.  He said that there was also the option of applying for Housing Benefit if residents were not able to afford their rent.

The Chair agreed to take this issue out of the meeting to discuss further.

Councillor Hargreaves continued with his presentation, he said that Council Tax would be rising by £5 a year which equated to an increase of 3.09%.  This would raise an extra £190,000.

He said it was a balanced budget with a small surplus of £346,000.

He highlighted the table on page 144, item 19 which was a comparison table showing the changes from last years Council Tax requirement 2021/22 to this years 2022/23.  He said the inescapable growth figure of £1.9m included costs for Little Canfield, increased agency costs for driver shortages, staff increases and transformation costs. The service growth figure included the S106 IT system for process control and a new system for monitoring IT system vulnerability. 

He said the fair funding and business rates reforms had not been carried out, and there was a further one-year extension of the New Homes Bonus with no legacy payments.

He said the MTFS showed  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52