Issue - meetings

Transformation Programme and Revenue Budget 2012 - 2015

 

 

Meeting: 31/01/2013 - Cabinet (Item 94)

94 Transformation Programme and Revenue Budget 2012 - 2015 pdf icon PDF 695 KB

Report of the Head of Transformation Services and Head of Corporate Finance and ICT

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Further to Minute No. 82 of the meeting held on 13 December 2012, the Cabinet considered the report of the Head of Transformation Services and Head of Finance and ICT which:

 

·         provided an update on the recently announced local government settlement and concluded that the Council now faced a budget gap of £50.8 million over the next two years.  This compared to the previous forecast of £43.7 million.

·         provided details of a number of grants which the Council had been notified about after the settlement announcement which helped to mitigate some of the budget gap;

·         provided an update on the outcome of consultation on options previously approved for consultation and recommendations on what should now be included in the final two year Budget Plan;

·         identified further new budget options and assumptions for consideration and consultation; and

·         illustrated how the two year Budget Plan could be balanced within available resources assuming the options identified were approved and implemented.

 

The report was arranged in a number of parts with associated annexes as indicated below:-

 

 

 Annexes

Potential Financial Impact

 

£m

Part 1

Provisional Local Government Settlement and impact on the funding gap.

A

7.100

Part 2

Consultation and Engagement Overview

B

    -

Part 3

Options previously approved for Consultation

C & D

1.490

Part 4

New Options for Consideration by Cabinet

E

-13.791

Part 5

Two year Budget Plan

F

     -

Part 6

Robustness and Risk

    -

     -

Part 7             

Next Steps and Conclusions

    -

     -

 

The Leader referred to the revised version of Annex F to the report previously circulated to Members and to the addendum note, setting out the various amendments to the content of the report which had been circulated prior to the start of the meeting.

 

The Chief Executive indicated that the report was a major milestone in the budget setting process.  The resolutions to be made would form the basis of the report to Budget Council on 28 February 2013, which would enable the Council to set its budget.  She requested the Cabinet to take into account amongst other things, the consultation and engagement activity to date and the impact and risk associated with each option.

 

Members of the Cabinet raised questions on the following issues referred to in the report and officer responded to the issues as referred to below:

 

Page/Paragraph in Report

Question/Response

Page 114

(Councillor Moncur)

Over the last couple of years, the Council has undertaken extensive consultation. Have any other methods used proven to have particular success and what lessons have we learned?

 

Response: 

The Director of Corporate Commissioning indicated that a number of lessons had been learned over the last few years.

 

This year, we had been proportionate and more targeted. All methods have their place and the telephone survey had proven to be very successful.  Interest groups had been consulted on the principles of the budget options, with the majority of them being supported. Consultations had been held on issues relating to the Sefton Strategic Needs Assessment with the Voluntary, Community, Faith Sector,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 94