Issue - meetings

Report of the Chief Executive and the Head of Corporate Finance and ICT

The Cabinet considered the report of the Chief Executive and the Head of Corporate Finance and ICT which outlined the Council’s financial position for 2015/16 and 2016/17; set out the financial position in the context of the Council’s priorities; described the process undertaken to deliver a programme of savings options that reflected the need to produce a balanced budget alongside the objective of minimising the impact of the cuts on Sefton communities; provided the Cabinet with the first phase of savings options that would contribute to the forecast budget gap for the next two years; and outlined the gap remaining and the timetable for producing a balanced two year budget plan.

The Cabinet also considered a supplentary note which set out the following typographical errors in the report:

·         Page 67 - 34 Street Lighting Energy total actual budget is £1,447,400 not £1,180,000

·         Page 138 - 56 Commissioning Reduction of the Commissioning Service staffing – the text under Indicative Number of Staff at Riskshould read: up to 4 - 5 note that where changes and/or savings cannot be achieved through deletion of vacant posts, VR or VER then there may be a need for compulsory redundancies arising from this option.

The Chief Executive indicated that since 2011, the Council had faced unprecedented reductions in its resources as a result of cuts in Government Funding. In the preceding 4 years, cuts of £114 million had been identified and implemented and for the period 2015/16 to 2016/17, it was forecast that savings of a further £55 million would need to be identified. This represented a real term reduction of 45% on the 2011 spending level. She also indicated that the report set out some significant savings proposals totalling £30.288m which would have an impact on the delivery of services for the local community and further savings proposals of £24.418m had still to be identified. All of the savings proposals had been produced in accordance with the Core Principles and Budget Principles set out in the report in order to produce a two year budget plan and the proposals would need to be considered and approved by Members of the Council.

The Head of Corporate Finance and ICT indicated that the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board had considered and noted the content of the report at its meeting held on 25 November 2014 and requested that the following questions be submitted to the Cabinet for a response.