Issue - meetings

Background:

This report provided details of the provisional local government settlement announced by Government on 15 December 2016 together with the impact on the Council’s proposed budget for 2017/2018 as underpinned by the Core Spending Power calculation, as set out in table 1 of the report.

In terms of the Settlement Funding Assessment (SFA), the announcement did not change the four year Revenue Support Grant allocations announced in the 2016/17 settlement and the changes to the Non Domestic Rates (NDR) Baseline were negligible. The report also provided further details of the New Homes Bonus allocations and details of the extent to which Council Tax could be increased.

It was noted that the SFA was some £8.627 million less than the figure for 2016/2017. This represented a cut of 12.0% compared to the national figure of 10.6%, reflecting Medway’s higher than average council tax base relative to SFA

The Revenue Support Grant, an important component of the SFA, was set to decrease in 2017/2018 by a further £9.527 million to £18.504 million, a 34.0% cut. The report also provided details of the impact on other grants.

Reasons:

These provisional levels of grant are a fundamental component of the 2017/18 budget, and their announcement is a further stage in the process of preparing a balanced budget.