Issue - meetings

Background:

This report provided Cabinet with details of the provisional Local Government settlement announced by Government on 18 December 2014.

This was the third Local Government Finance Settlement under the new arrangements for business rates that came into place on 1 April 2013.

It was noted that the overall settlement figure, announced as the ‘Settlement Funding Assessment’ (SFA), was some £13.889 million less than the equivalent figure for 2014/2015, which incorporated an adjustment for Local Welfare Provision that was funded by a specific grant of £792,000 in 2014/2015. This was a cut of 14.4% compared to a national figure of 13.9%.

Reasons:

These provisional levels of grant form a fundamental component of the 2015/2016 budget, and their announcement is a further stage in the process of preparing a balanced budget.