The Chief Finance Officer advised that the report before the Committee was the second stage of the budget process and would be presented to all Advisory Committees.  The first stage had been the ‘Financial Prospects and Budget Strategy’ report which had been reported to Cabinet on 17 September 2015.  The purpose of this report was to ensure that all Members of the Advisory Committees had a role to play in the governance of the Council and the budget decision making process and to make suggestions to Cabinet on growth and savings ideas for the services within their terms of reference. 

The main message was that this should be a significant step towards the Council becoming financially self-sufficient.  The 10-year budget at Appendix F to the report, included no Revenue Support Grant (RSG) from 2016/17 and no New Homes Bonus (NHB) from 2019/20.  In practice it was likely that some funding would still be received from these sources in the near future but the amounts were unknown.  The Financial Prospects report had recommended that any amounts that were received were placed into the Financial Plan Reserve which could be used to support the 10-year budget by funding invest to save initiatives and support for the Property Investment Strategy (PIS).  Using the funding for these purposes would result in additional year on year income that was not impacted by Government decisions.

Members had agreed the last 10-year budget in February and the changes that had been made since then included:

• Rolling the 10-year budget on for one year and updating base figures.
• Removing reliance on RSG
• Reducing the Council Tax increase assumption to 2% for all years
• Reducing fees and charges inflation to 2.5% for all years
• Reducing pay award inflation to 1% for 4 years
• Including income from PIS for the first time of £500k from 16/17, £700k from 18/19, £800k from 23/24
• Savings of £500k in 16/17 and then £100k pa for all future years

The current list of growth and savings proposals was £52,000 short of the £500,000 target (if all of the proposals were accepted), and Members were therefore being asked for further suggestions for growth and savings ideas.  He further reminded Members that £5.3m had been saved from 2011/12 to 2016/17 (113 items) and there had been over £10m of savings since 2005/06. 

Members reviewed Appendix D which contained the growth and savings proposals put forward by the Portfolio Holders and Chief Officers, and the Service Change Impact Assessments (SCIAs) in Appendix E.  Members also considered and gave individual answers to the following five questions:

a) What services should the Council invest more in?

b) What services should the Council disinvest from?

c)  What services work well?

d) What services don’t work well?

e)  What issues would you like Cabinet to take into account?

The Head of Finance summarised the views put forward and Members considered whether there was anything they wanted taken forward as potential growth or savings suggestions. From the summaries Members discussed that the Council was subsidising its leisure provider, Sencio. Members agreed Cabinet should review the existing contract to ensure Sencio contributed more or all of the asset maintenance costs for the leisure facilities they used.

Action 2: The Chief Officer Corporate Support to provide to the Committee details of the breakdown for where the savings in SCIA 12 for Corporate Support reduction in maintenance and consumables were achieved.

Public Sector Equality Duty

Members noted that consideration had been given to impacts under the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Resolved:  That

a)        the saving and growth proposals identified in Appendix D to the report applicable to the Advisory Committee (SCIA 11 – Facilities Management: Reduction in utility costs, SCIA 12 – Facilities Management: Reduction in maintenance and consumables costs, SCIA 13 – Facilities Management: Increased print income, SCIA 14, Various Partnerships: Revised split of costs and SCIA 15 – Partnership work covered within existing resources), be recommended to Cabinet;

b)        it be recommended to Cabinet that Sencio contribute more towards, or all of the cost of, the asset maintenance of its sites to be considered as part of a review of the contract with them.