Agenda item

This report presents the Council’s draft capital and revenue budget for 2012/2013 for matters within the remit of this committee.

Discussion:

The committee considered the draft budget as relevant to the remit of the committee, together with the comments from other Overview and Scrutiny Committees, which had considered the budget within their remit at recent meetings (agenda item 8).

The Chief Finance Officer introduced the report reminding Members that the Cabinet had published its initial budget proposals on 27 November 2012 but that this report now encompassed the outcome of the Funding Settlement, so reflected the current situation. He advised that Appendix 2b set out the position for the Business Support Department where there had originally been a pressure of £1.1 million but these pressures had now been removed and listed in the ‘Further Proposals’ column.

The committee voiced its serious concern at the lack of regard by government to the Local Authority budget setting timetable and that it was unreasonable to issue the final funding settlement and the Local Authority Central Support for Schools (LACSEG), so late in the process.

A Member raised the issue of the number schools becoming Academies and the impact this might have on Local Authority provision, in particular HR provision to schools. He also voiced concern for Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision and the wasted years when the council could have used a ‘spend to save’ scheme to benefit both families and the local economy but had not taken the opportunity to do so. Officers advised that current monitoring had shown that there was a current under spend on the SEN budget.

A Member asked why non-recurring funding for the airport campaign had been removed from the budget for 2013/2014, as the need for a campaign looked to continue for a number of years. Officers advised that the airport campaign was one of a number of recurring and non-recurring items funded in 2012/13 from the general reserve fund. In this instance the project was a non-recurring addition and had therefore been removed. It remained open to Cabinet or Full Council whether to put the money for this campaign back into the budget.

Officers were also asked about the public health grant which the council was due to receive when the public health role moved from NHS ownership to become a council function in April 2013. Members were advised that the ring-fenced grant had been confirmed as £13.2 million and officers estimated that £12 million was already committed expenditure for 2013/2014. However, the government expected council’s to accomplish more with this grant than was presently achieved.

The committee also discussed:

·        expectation that ‘floor-damping’ was due to rise to £5 million

·        early intervention funding for 2 year olds

·        maximum gain to be achieved from the Category Management team

·        maintenance funding for the Medway Tunnel

·        quantifying of demographic growth and pressure in social care budgets.

Decision:

The committee agreed to note the draft revenue and capital budget 2013/2014 insofar as it affected the committee and noted the discussions held at other Overview and Scrutiny committees and forwarded the comments for consideration by Cabinet on 12 February 2013.