Agenda item

To consider the council’s draft budget proposals for 2014/15:

                     i.            Corporate Services Department

                   ii.            Chief Executive’s Office

                  iii.            Feedback from Overview and Scrutiny Panels and overall conclusions

The Borough Treasurer reported that the end of the consultation period was approaching and that the Executive would be considering all representations made at its meeting on 11 February 2014, before recommending the budget to Council.

The provisional settlement had now been received and although the year ahead would be challenging, the settlement was in line with expectations, overall. The most significant changes since the previous year were around the formula grant.

In response to members’ queries, officers made the following points:

• The Borough Treasurer stated that it was expected that all staff except Chief Officers would receive a 1% pay award.
• The Director of Corporate Services reported that in terms of the Corporate Services department, draft revenue budget pressures were initially £134,000. She reported that glide path savings for the department totalled £610,000. This had been as a result of staff reductions, contract savings and careful use of budgets through the year. The savings target for the facilities category management strategy would be challenging. In addition, she asked that members note that the proposal to charge unions for the space they used at the Commercial Centre may not be realised as Unison had indicated that they would not be able to pay.
• In addition, the Director of Corporate Services reported that the contract for lift maintenance had now been terminated and a more significant programme of work to completely refurbish the lifts was being pursued to assure the reliability and future of the lifts in Easthampstead House.  
• The Borough Treasurer reported that two savings had been made in respect of insurance. The first saving arose from a reduction in insurance premiums following a competitive tendering exercise. The second resulted from a cancellation of annual Terrorism and Personal Accident premiums.  No claims had been made against the Personal Accident insurance in recent years.  It is  not a mandatory insurance and as a result, was seen as another low risk saving.
• The Borough Treasurer reported that the level of contingency funding necessary was always a judgement call. Last year there had been three unknown risks which led to contingency funding being higher, these included:

i)                    the localisation of council tax benefit, however take up had been lower than predicted. Therefore this risk was currently non-existent.

ii)                   Localisation of business rates, income had been higher than expected and therefore this risk had also been reduced.

iii)                 The transfer of Public Health responsibilities and the risk as to whether funding would be sufficient. It was now confirmed that this work could be delivered under current grant levels.

• The Borough Treasurer reported that contingency finding had been used in previous years mainly to tackle changes in demand for services. The most significant service area in recent years had been Looked After Children, where the Council could require funding of up to £200,000 a year for a single child.

The Director of Corporate Services thanked Helen Pennington, Group Accountant for working hard to pull together all the savings for the department.

The chairman confirmed that the Commission had noted the minutes of the Panel meetings at which the budget proposals had been considered, and the Commission did not have any comments to make to the Executive at this stage.