The Director of Finance and Business Improvement presented the Medium Term Financial Strategy to the Committee.  The approach was for a stand still budget on an assumption of a 2% council tax increase being agreed.  The MTFS also set out adverse and positive budget assumptions.

The Climate Change work would be coming forwards to Policy and Resources Committee in April and would also need to be built in, there was an assumption on capital and revenue spend.  The report set out proposed savings and any growth would need to be paid for. 

Budget shortfalls, such as that identified in planning, would roll forward and would need to be addressed.  The Council’s approach was to look within planning first and then if the savings could not be found to expand the net further to other areas.

Capital projects that paid for themselves could be afforded and considered.

The Committee questioned the proposed 5% increase in parking fees and the need to consider whether that would automatically translate into a 5% revenue increase, especially given the current underperformance. It was noted that fees and charges schedule would be coming to the January 2020 meeting.

Continuing their consideration of the issue from the previous item the Committee agreed that the issue of planning budgets underperforming needed to be highlighted to Policy and resources.  This was due to the view that sufficient savings could not be found within planning, and that the overall budget was not sufficiently elastic to take the deficit being rolled forward.

RESOLVED:

1.  That the Medium Term Financial Strategy 2020/21 – 2024/25 be noted; and

2.  That the issue of the deficit in the planning budget be highlighted to Policy and Resources Committee with the view that sufficient savings could not be found within planning and  that there were deep concerns about the elasticity of the budget to accommodate the deficit if it were rolled forward.