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Decision details
Budget Strategy 2013-14 Onwards
Decision Maker: Cabinet.
Decision status: For Determination
Is Key decision?: Yes
Is subject to call in?: Yes
Purpose:
To agree a draft Council Tax and Budget
Strategy for 2013/14 onwards
Decision:
1.
That the provisional allocation of the local council
tax support funding, as set out in Appendix A of the report of
Corporate Leadership Team, be agreed and notified to parish
councils along with their tax base.
2.
That the revised strategic revenue projection, as
set out in Appendix B of the Corporate Leadership Team, which
incorporates the changes outlined in sections 1.6 and 1.7 be
agreed.
3.
That the proposed savings, as set out in Appendix C
to the report of Corporate Leadership Team, be agreed.
4.
That the assumptions used in the development of the
available resources as detailed throughout the report of Corporate
Leadership Team be noted.
5. That consideration of the use of the additional capital resources identified in paragraph 1.13.3 of the report of Corporate Leadership Team be deferred pending the final cost of the Museum East Wing project.
6. That the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Leader of the Council, be given delegated authority to amend the detail of the Budget Strategy arising from the annual announcement by the Department for Communities and Local Government regarding local government finance.
Reasons for the decision:
Background
On
25th July 2012 the Cabinet considered the initial budget
strategy for 2013 onwards. At that time a strategic revenue
projection (SRP) was agreed, including a provisional level of
Council Tax as a planning and consultation tool. The agreed SRP
included increases for inflation based on information provided by
key officers and projection data from sources such as the office of
budget responsibility. Cabinet chose to set no inflation increase
for supplies and services budgets and instructed officers to
produce a corporate fees and charges report proposing increases for
all fees and charges in line with the Council’s fees and
charges policy.
The SRP, that was agreed, estimated resources at £18.8m and predicted expenditure including new budget pressures of £20.8m, leaving a need to find savings in 2013/14 of £2m. At that time a number of risks were considered by Cabinet and these were:
a) The government’s welfare reform plans;
b) The outcome of the consultation on the retention of business rates;
c) The localisation of council tax support;
d) Council tax levels, including the effect of any Local Council Tax Support scheme finally agreed;
e) The level of income achievement;
f) A series of local pressures including health and safety risks, such as King Street Multi Storey Car Park, and the Local Development Framework.
The
capital programme was considered in a separate report on the same
agenda and at that time it was agreed that:
a) The capital strategy be amended to including the principle of prudential borrowing where this achieves commercial development;
b) Officers should develop and present proposals that achieve the Council’s objectives through commercial development;
c) Resources would be provided to enhance the asset management programmes, to demolish King Street Car Park and to support the second phase of the High Street Regeneration project.
Funding
of the current programme was provided and some additional resources
identified and schemes were agreed according to the principles set
out above. Long term funding remained an important issue, work on
the infrastructure delivery plan was progressing and this would
lead to the development of a community infrastructure levy charged
on developments in the borough in addition the future of the New
Homes Bonus payments remained at risk due to the continuing
economic climate and threat of further austerity measures, and the
risk remained that additional resources would not be sufficient to
support a future programme. It was however identified that new
homes bonus of at least £1.8m would be available next
year.
Since
the initial reports in July 2012 a number of the factors have
changed and these have been considered. At this time the government
has not announced the finance settlement and the report of
Corporate Leadership Team could therefore not consider the
provisional figures that will be provided in that announcement. The
report of Corporate Leadership Team did consider a set of figures
calculated from the most recent announcements and consultation
documents produced by Government.
The
Autumn Statement
The
Autumn Statement is one of two major statements made by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer each year. The other is the budget
usually presented in March. The Chancellor presented the Autumn
Statement to Parliament on 5th December 2012. This is
later than in previous years and as a consequence has delayed the
annual announcement by the Department for Communities and Local
Government (DCLG) regarding local government finance.
The key messages in the
Chancellor’s statement for local government finance were that
a spending review would occur as early as the first half of 2013
which would set the departmental spending plans for 2015/16
onwards. Also that further reductions in public sector spending
were immediately required at 1% in 2013/14 and 2% in 2014/15. Only
the 2014/15 reduction of 2% would directly affect local
government.
Other
issues were:
a) The extension of the period of doubling of the small business rate relief by a further 12 months. The implications for business rates retention are not yet known;
b) The exemption of all newly built commercial property (completed between October 2013 and September 2016) from empty property rates for 18 months. The implications for the growth incentive of the business rates retention proposal are not yet known but could be significant;
c) The provision of additional resources of up to £2bn into transport infrastructure, up to £600m into ultra-fast broadband in designated cities and over £1bn into education. The government intended that much of this resource would be channeled through the local enterprise partnerships and the Council’s route to securing funding from these proposals for Maidstone would be through bids to the SELEP.
d) Most welfare benefits would increase by 1% per annum over the next two years with state pension and disability benefit increases being greater.
The
statement was linked to the latest office of budget
responsibilities economic and fiscal outlook which was published to
coincide with the Autumn Statement. This suggested that GDP would
fall this year by 0.1% before growth commenced in 2013 at 1.2% per
annum and rising to 2.7% per annum over the period to 2016. The
forecast suggested that a further year of austerity measures would
be required over those previously predicted as the Chancellor had
revised his deficit reduction target date by one additional year to
2017/18.
The implications of this
statement for future years are that further austerity measures will
fall on local government with an additional 2% reduction in funding
in 2014/15. The years beyond 2014/15 will be made clearer on the
announcement of the findings of the spending review. At this time
it is expected that the effects will be as severe as the reductions
experienced as a consequence of the last spending review in
2010.
The implications for 2013/14
will, in the main, arise from the changes to the business rates
retention scheme and will not be clear until the DCLG makes its
funding announcement on 19th December. As this is the
same day as the Cabinet meeting any clear and significant
information will be presented at the meeting followed up by a full
briefing if necessary.
Review
of Current Performance
The
current year’s financial performance is reported to the
Corporate Leadership Team and to the Cabinet on a quarterly basis.
The first two quarterly reports show a reasonably stable under
spend against profiled budget of just over £0.3m. The
predicted outturn for the year, as at the end of September 2012,
was a £0.4m under spend comprised mainly of salary
vacancies.
The
capital programme as approved by the Council in March 2012 has been
amended by the Cabinet’s quarterly monitoring to allow scheme
slippage into 2013/14. Additional schemes have been added to the
programme to demolish King Street Multi Storey Car Park and to
provide phase 2 of the High Street Regeneration project, these
scheme were agreed by the Cabinet in July 2012 following the
identification of funding.
The combined value of asset
sales and other funding is currently above target by approximately
£0.16m and the options this gives are dealt with later in
this report.
The Cabinet has considered
the use of balances this year and a series of proposals to utilise
the significant under spend from 2011/12 have been considered by
the Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee and with
some minor changes will be submitted to the Leader of the Council
for final approval prior to this Cabinet meeting. The maximum
amount available from the 2011/12 under spend is approximately
£1.1m and proposals to further the key priorities of the
Council, totalling £0.83m, have been submitted for
approval.
Review
of Revenue Resources
Business Rates Retained
As stated earlier in this report the DCLG will announce the finance settlement for this council on 19th December 2012 which will set the provisional the level of business rates retained by this council. This will be as a result of setting the business rates baseline, the values of the initial payment to central government, the county council and the fire authority and the level of tariff to be paid to the government. This will leave, by deduction, the value of business rates retained.
Based on the consultation data and other announcements from central government the current estimate is that the business rates retained will be the sum of the following elements:
|
£,000 |
|
Formula Funding |
5,080 |
Closest comparable figure to 2012/13 formula grant and indicative of a 10.3% reduction in funding |
2011/12 CT Freeze Grant |
335 |
|
Local Council Tax Support Funding (including parish share) |
1,463 |
A Year 1 transitional grant is also included |
Homelessness Prevention |
101 |
|
|
|
|
Total business rates retained |
6,979 |
|
The
figures tabulated above include the funding of the
government’s proposed localisation of council tax support
that will replace council tax benefit from 1st April 2012. At its
meeting on 21st November 2012 the Cabinet approved the proposed
scheme for recommendation to the Council on 12th December 2012 and
this funding represents 90% of the government’s predicted
expenditure on council tax benefit, had the scheme continued in
2013/14.
Part of this element of the retained business rates relates to the benefit paid to claimants in parished areas and the proposed local scheme will affect parish precepts. The level of effect was considered by the General Purposes Group when it set the Tax Base for 2013/14. It is clear from the figures given in the government consultation documents that the value has been modelled at a district level and no national attempt has been made to model the effect at a parish level. The government has confirmed that it wishes to pass the funding to district councils and expects appropriate consideration of the funding of parish councils to be made. It has not legislated for the payment of this grant on to parishes.
Should the Council wish to pass on funding to parish councils a method that reflects the loss of income from the reduced ability to generate council tax would be equitable. If such a method is not used then parishes with relatively high levels of benefit claimants and low levels of precept could find themselves disproportionately disadvantaged. One such method, given the work completed to calculate the Tax Base for each parish, is to apportion the funding based upon the value of benefit currently claimed in each area, as any loss through reductions in council tax income will be proportionate to that value.
The Tax Base represents the number of taxable properties in an area expressed as a proportion of the Band D value. It enables the individual charge for each property to be calculated from the precept value provided by each parish to the council. The calculation for 2013/14 includes an adjustment to allow for the discount now granted to previous benefit claimants through the new LCTS scheme and it is this calculation that gives an equitable method of distributing the funding.
In addition to using an equitable allocation method it is appropriate that all resources received by this Council should be distributed as a single value. The sums received have been calculated by central government on a block basis and the lowest level of area it considered is a district council. This means that the government’s distribution is not based upon the transaction levels in each parished or non-parished area separately but for the borough council area as a whole. Added together the standard funding now rolled into retained business rates plus the first year transitional grant totals £1.463m and attached at Appendix A to the report of Corporate Leadership Team was a table that provides the necessary distribution of the total funding on the basis outlined above. The level of funding that would remain within the Council’s own budget strategy is £1.38m. Consideration of how this resource does not fully finance the council’s loss from the scheme is dealt with under the consideration of the resources available from council tax.
Using this figure to calculate this council’s share of retained business rates gives the following estimate:
|
£,000 |
|
Formula Funding |
5,080 |
Closest comparable figure to 2012/13 formula grant and indicative of a 10.3% reduction in funding |
2011/12 CT Freeze Grant |
335 |
|
Local Council Tax Support Funding (excluding parish share) |
1,379 |
A Year 1 transitional grant is also included |
Homelessness Prevention |
101 |
|
|
|
|
Total business rates retained |
6,895 |
|
This estimate is the best available at this time and the Cabinet may wish to give consideration to the views of the Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the apportionment of the LCTS scheme funding to parishes before formal approval of the proposal however it would be necessary for parish councils to be given the provisional figures at this time so that they can continue to prepare their budget forecast for 2013/14 and set their local precepts.
Council Tax
The Council’s current council tax charge has remained stable at the 2010/11 level of £222.39 per annum for a band D property. Set against this stable tax level has been a council tax freeze grant claimed from central government for the two years of a 0% increase. In 2013/14 one of the two grants will cease and the other, as detailed earlier, will remain until 2015/16 but be included in the retained business rates income. Had the council raised the same level of resources from a council tax increase the reduction in resources would not occur and the additional income available to the Council in 2015/16 would be in the region of £0.67m. This would be sufficient to resource the budget pressures outstanding for 2014/15 as set out below.
At the meeting on 25th July 2012 the Cabinet agreed a SRP for planning purposes that included an assumed 3% increase in council tax income. This represented a 2.5% increase in the council tax charge and a 0.5% increase in the tax base arising from new property.
Since that meeting the Government has announced support towards a further council tax freeze. This announcement offers a grant equivalent to a 1% increase for two years and reduces the level at which a council would be required to conduct a referendum over any proposed increase to 2%.
As the Cabinet are aware, from consideration of a 0% increase as part of the budget strategy over the previous two years, resources not gained through a council tax increase are only supported over the period during which the grant is payable. Considering the ten year period from 2011/12, when the first grant was accepted, the Council will have foregone approximately £8.8m in resources by 2020/21. This additional arrangement available from the Government for 2013/14 would, if accepted, mean a further level of resources foregone of £1.8m bringing the maximum foregone income to £1.3m per annum and in total £10.6m by 2020/21.
By the time of this meeting the General Purpose Group had considered and agreed a tax base of 55155.1 which is approximately 10.3% lower than the tax base for 2012/13. This is due to the need to discount the tax base by the consequences of the LCTS scheme that commences on 1st April 2012. Excluding this discounting the underlying tax base has increased by 1.1%.
Considered together the reduced tax base and a further freeze on council tax charge levels would generate £12.266m in 2013/14. An increase of 1.99% in the charge, just below the referendum level, would increase income by £0.244m and therefore generate a total of £12.510m in 2013/14. This would increase band D tax levels by £4.43 per annum to £226.82.
A decision on the level of council tax increase that the Cabinet would wish to recommend to the Council need not be taken at this time however the revised SRP given at Appendix B to the report of Corporate Leadership Team includes 1.99% increase to replace the 2.5% planning assumption to ensure it does not breach the referendum limit.
The Cabinet had also considered a report on the collection fund adjustment. The decision from that report was to distribute approximately £0.2m across the major preceptors and this council. The share calculated for this council is £32,000 and this can be added to the resources available from the council tax charge detailed above.
Combining the resources available to this council from the current estimated level of retained business rates, the council tax income and the collection fund adjustment would produce resources for the period of the revised SRP as tabled below. The Cabinet should note that the level of resources available from retained business rates given for years 2015/16 and beyond assume the effects of the spending review announced by the Chancellor. Although a projection is given, no actual detail is available to suggest the rate at which the resources available to this council will reduce or whether the reduction will be seen through the retained business rates or through another source of government funding.
|
2013/14 £,000 |
2014/15 £,000 |
2015/16 £,000 |
2016/17 £,000 |
2017/18 £,000 |
Retained Business Rates |
6,895 |
6,404 |
5,589 |
5,170 |
4,782 |
Collection Fund Adjustment |
32 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Council Tax |
12,510 |
12,822 |
13,139 |
13,464 |
13,795 |
Available Resources |
19,437 |
19,226 |
18,728 |
18,634 |
18,577 |
Review of Strategic Projection
When the Cabinet agreed the SRP in July 2012 officers were set the task of continuing to review the budget pressures and identify additional savings to balance the budget. Since that time officers have reviewed all of the pressures outlined in the SRP and it is now proposed that the following amendments should be considered.
a) Lost income from regeneration – this budget reflected the issues being considered for King Street Multi Storey Car Park and the possibility that the asset would be sold and revenue income lost. The decision of cabinet to demolish the car park and provide a surface level car park is estimated to be cost neutral in revenue terms and the budget is no longer required.
b) Local Development Framework – following the decision on strategic sites within the core strategy, the profile of expenditure on the local development framework has been reassessed. It is now clear that while the same level of resources will be required overall, the timing of the funding need has slipped and the resources are now programmed as growth in 2014/15.
c) Safer Maidstone Partnership – this provision was original made during the development of the 2011/12 strategy to offset against grant loss. Growth was approved in the 2012/13 budget strategy however the election of the Police and Crime Commissioner has required a reassessment of the appropriate timing for considering the use of the resource. It would at this time be prudent for the Council to remove the growth item and await the plans and strategies set out by the new commissioner to be published before reconsidering any further action. The council has funded a three year contribution to the domestic violence advise work being coordinated across Kent by the Kent Probation Service. A budget of £16,700 per annum was funded from the Leader’s contingency.
d) Growth provision – this is an annual provision for growth outside of the specific items reported during the development of the annual budget. The resource available in 2012/13 remains an unallocated balance within the Leader’s portfolio and no bids for resources are expected in the remainder of 2012/13. With the full balance available from 2012/13 it is not necessary to resource a new balance in 2013/14.
In addition to the proposed reductions set out in the paragraph above there are two proposed increases in growth pressure and these are detailed below:
a) Pay and contractual commitments – this growth item has seen an increase due to more accurate knowledge in relation to the indices that are used by each service. In general the office of Budget Responsibility has recently published amended growth and inflation rates. At this time it is not proposed to further amend this item as the factors relate to general growth that budget managers will be expected to control rather than contractual growth.
These amendments, taken in conjunction with the revised assessment of resources available to the Council set a requirement to find savings in 2013/14 of £1.2m compared to the £2m requirement set out in the decision of cabinet in July 2012. The values for each year of the SRP are set out in the table below:
|
2013/14 £,000 |
2014/15 £,000 |
2015/16 £,000 |
2016/17 £,000 |
2017/18 £,000 |
Available Resources |
19,437 |
19,226 |
18,728 |
18,634 |
18,577 |
Projected Requirement |
20,563 |
20,608 |
19,890 |
19,488 |
19,218 |
Savings Target |
1,126 |
1,382 |
1,162 |
854 |
641 |
The Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee has worked with officers and the Leader of the Council through a budget working group this year. Initial work has been to ensure that the working group is considering the budget strategy with a complete knowledge of the issues and a number of meetings, including briefings have occurred this year. When the committee considers the decisions of the Cabinet, in January 2013, the members of the group will ensure that the debate is informed in depth on the background issues facing the Council.
Review
of Savings Proposals
Savings and efficiency data
was not reported in detail to Cabinet in July 2012. The targets
were set out and it was identified that some savings proposals
existed, in the main these came from long term plans developed for
the 2011/12 strategy. The report suggested that, set
against a need to find £2m in savings, plans
existed to save £0.6m.
As stated previously, the
revised SRP at Appendix B of the report of Corporate Leadership
Team shows a need to save £1.2m in 2013/14 and attached at
Appendix C to the report of Corporate Leadership Team is a more
detailed analysis of the previously identified savings and other
proposals that have been developed by officers in discussion with
Cabinet Members. The value of these proposals, set against the
required need for savings in each of the five years considered by
the revised SRP, are tabled below.
|
2013/14 £,000 |
2014/15 £,000 |
2015/16 £,000 |
2016/17 £,000 |
2017/18 £,000 |
Savings requirement in SRP |
1,126 |
1,382 |
1,162 |
854 |
641 |
Savings proposals |
1,126 |
788 |
220 |
140 |
0 |
Savings still required |
0 |
594 |
942 |
714 |
641 |
The savings proposals set out at Appendix C to the report of Corporate Leadership Team include the values reported in the fees and charges report.
New
Homes Bonus
Along
with the finance settlement that is due to be announced on
19th December 2012, the DCLG announced the allocation of
New Homes Bonus for the forthcoming year which would be £2.8
million for Maidstone.
To date
the Council has utilised the resources from new homes bonus
payments to support its priorities through regeneration. In the
main resources have been directed to the capital programme with a
small sum of approximately £0.2m being used for one off
revenue projects. When cabinet considered the capital programme in
July 2012 it agreed that a sum of £1.8m from the forthcoming
new homes bonus payment be directed to the capital programme
to finance the second phase of the High
Street regeneration project.
Tabled below is the schedule
of amounts received and expected along with the amount already
utilised by the Council.
|
2011/12 £,000 |
2012/13 £,000 |
2013/14 £,000 |
2011/12 Allocation |
892 |
892 |
892 |
2012/13 Allocation |
|
825 |
825 |
2012/13 Affordable Homes Premium |
|
78 |
78 |
2013/14 Allocation |
|
|
1,045 |
2013/14 Affordable Homes Premium |
|
|
n/a |
Receipt |
892 |
1,795 |
2,840 |
Capital Financing |
892 |
1,615 |
1,800 |
Revenue Financing |
|
180 |
|
Balance remaining |
0 |
0 |
1,040 |
Capital
Expenditure
The capital programme
approved by Council in March 2012 has been modified by Cabinet
following the July 2012 report that set out proposals to finance
commercial activity, health and safety works (the demolition of
King Street Car Park) and the enhancement of the Asset Management
Programmes. The current programme and details of available funding
are set out in Appendix D to the report of Corporate Leadership
Team.
During the work in developing the strategy for 2012/13 resources were set aside for the funding of any over spend on the Museum East Wing project. This project is nearing completion of the negotiations about the final account and the level of resources that may be required will be known presently. At this time the resources set aside by Cabinet, although not expressly stated, remain within revenue balances in case of need.
At this time the capital programme ends in 2014/15. This issue has been previously considered by Cabinet but a significant number of factors need to be progressed before clarity regarding resources and priorities can be established. In terms of the programme there are three strands:
a) The standard programme including strategic priority projects, housing grants and housing support;
b) The commercialisation proposals;
c) The infrastructure delivery
plan.
In
terms of funding there are three key risks:
a) The viability, long term, of the new homes bonus;
b) The acceptability and affordability of prudential borrowing;
c) The development of a viable community infrastructure levy.
Some of the work required to mitigate the risks or develop the necessary proposals are nearing completion but there is a significant risk of misalignment of priorities within the affordable capital programme if all matters are not resolved before the future programme is agreed.
Capital Financing
The funding of the capital
programme as agreed by Council in March 2012 is secured, as
detailed in the report considered by Cabinet in July
2012.
In addition the confirmation
of the revised level of prudential borrowing by Council and the
confirmation of the level of new homes bonus by the DCLG should
both occur prior to the meeting of Cabinet. Subject to those
confirmations the revised programme agreed by cabinet in July 2012
is supported by the required level of resources. Officers can
update the cabinet of any unexpected developments and necessary
changes to the considerations set out in this report at the
meeting.
In addition to the figures
provided previously there have been two minor receipts from Golding
Homes from the sale of properties that the Council retains a
contractual benefit from. These receipts increase receipts by a net
sum of £0.16m and are not allocated to any schemes currently
within the capital programme. Cabinet may wish to retain the
receipts until the final cost of the Museum East Wing project is
known and funding is agreed.
Balances
The current level of general
fund balance is £4.4m plus provisionally allocated sums of
another £1.5m. After allowing for the proposals considered
informally by Cabinet Members and formally by the Leader of the
Council and Corporate Services overview and Scrutiny, an
unallocated general fund balance of £3.6m remains. A
statement of balances is set out in Appendix E to the report of
Corporate Leadership Team that incorporates the use of balances to
cover the value of bids submitted to the Leader of the Council for
approval.
For 2012/13 the Council has
set a minimum level of balances of £2m and the Cabinet have
agreed to set a working balance of £2.3m below which it is
not expected that the Cabinet will utilise balances. In November
the Cabinet agreed to set aside the sum of £0.5m when
considering a report on potential commercialisation, as a provision
against possible scheme failure. This means that unallocated
resources of £0.7m and provisionally allocated resources of
£2m exist.
Earlier in this decision
consideration was given to the Chancellor of the Exchequers Autumn
Statement and the Economic and Fiscal Outlook report of the Office
of Budget Responsibility. Given the significant and detrimental
factors facing local government, as set out in that section of this
report, Cabinet should be mindful of the level of resources and the
potential need that the Council may have for those resources to
remain financially stable, before the current economic situation is
resolved.
Consultation
During the period in which
consultation on the budget strategy would normally occur the local
council tax support scheme consultation was ongoing. In order to minimise potential confusion
the budget consultation was delayed. Consultation must occur before
the final consideration of the budget by the Cabinet in February
2013. The consultation has been designed in a format that will
allow those who wish to respond a choice of responding direct
through the website, by return of a questionnaire or in person when
the consultation road show is in the Gateway.
Due to the considerable
change in the method of central funding of local authorities this
year through the retention of business rates and the national
coverage that suggests that 50% of business rates will be retained
by local authorities it is important that consultation and
briefings occur with local business. This work will be undertaken
through the business meetings held by the Economic Development
Manager.
The results of all of this
work will be incorporated into the report to the Cabinet in
February 2013 to enable consideration of the responses prior to a
recommendation to the Council.
Medium
Term Financial Strategy and Strategic Plan
The Strategic Plan refresh
is reported to Cabinet elsewhere on this agenda. It provides
feedback on the achievement of the outcomes required to achieve the
priorities of the Council and gives Cabinet an opportunity to
consider update actions and outcomes. It is essential that cabinet
consider the Strategic Plan and this budget strategy at the same
time as the information provided by the budget strategy enables
Cabinet to consider the resourcing available for achievement of the
proposed outcomes and provides the opportunity for cabinet to amend
either resourcing proposals or outcomes to balance plans and
resources appropriately.
As the DCLG had not announced the finance settlement for 2013/14 at the time of writing this report the MTFS statement has not been updated and for that reason was not included in the report of Corporate Leadership Team.
Alternative options considered:
The
production of the budget is an element of the statutory process of
setting the council tax each year. In addition the final document
and budget is required to be robust and adequate under the Local
government Act 2003 and the Chief Financial Officer is required to
give a statement to that fact. On this basis the actions outlined
in this report must be considered and a balanced budget ultimately
set by March 2013.
A
number of the assumptions set out in the report of Corporate
Leadership Team remain uncertain and alternative options are
possible. The main examples include:
a) The level of business rates that may be retained by the Council. At this time the estimate is based on the most up to date information and is reasonably in line with national commentators’ assumptions. By the time cabinet consider this report it may well be possible to update the meeting with the provisional settlement figures.
b) The calculation used to distribute the LCTS Scheme funding between the Council and the parishes. This proposal is based upon the value of the actual loss by each council and is considered to be the fairest methodology for all.
c) The indices used to calculate future inflation and contractual commitment. These indices have been recently updated and a revised set of assumptions could be developed, however the level of change likely to occur is not significant and it is proposed that current resources will be re-prioritised if the level of growth allowed is insufficient
Reason Key: Budget Reports;
Wards Affected: (All Wards);
Details of the Committee: None
Representations should be made by: 23 November 2012
Other reasons / organisations consulted
Internal - Corporate Leadership Team
External - Options as agreed by Cabinet in August 2011
Consultees
Corporate Leadership Team
Heads of Service
Members
Contact: Email: paulriley@maidstone.gov.uk.
Report author: Paul Riley
Publication date: 21/12/2012
Date of decision: 19/12/2012
Decided: 19/12/2012 - Cabinet.
Effective from: 04/01/2013
Accompanying Documents:
- Cabinet, Council or Committee Report for Budget Strategy 2013 14 Onwards - Cabinet PDF 167 KB View as HTML (1) 159 KB
- Enc. 1 for Cabinet, Council or Committee Report for Budget Strategy 2013 14 Onwards - Cabinet PDF 42 KB View as HTML (2) 10 KB
- Enc. 2 for Cabinet, Council or Committee Report for Budget Strategy 2013 14 Onwards - Cabinet PDF 32 KB View as HTML (3) 10 KB
- Enc. 3 for Cabinet, Council or Committee Report for Budget Strategy 2013 14 Onwards - Cabinet PDF 28 KB View as HTML (4) 10 KB
- Enc. 4 for Cabinet, Council or Committee Report for Budget Strategy 2013 14 Onwards - Cabinet PDF 66 KB View as HTML (5) 10 KB
- Enc. 5 for Cabinet, Council or Committee Report for Budget Strategy 2013 14 Onwards - Cabinet PDF 27 KB View as HTML (6) 10 KB