Issue - meetings

The Council considered a detailed report on the draft General Fund Revenue budget for 2021-22, which included a Council Tax requirement of£10,392,720 (excluding parish precepts) and a Council Tax increase of £5 per year ((2.83%), resulting in a Band D charge of £181.82. 

The provisional Local Government Finance Settlement (LGFS) for 2021-22 had been received on 17 December 2020.  The figures included in the budget reflected the information contained in the settlement. 

The Settlement Funding Assessment comprising the local share of business rates, and revenue support grant, was set out in the provisional LGFS.  The settlement had been in line with expectations which enabled the Council to retain £2.929 million of business rates in 2021-22, which was the same amount retained in 2020-21.  Core Spending Power had also stayed the same as 2020-21 at £14.090m; however, within the core spending power calculation, the Government had assumed that the Council would raise the Council Tax by the maximum amount (£5 or 3% whichever was the higher).   

Overall, the LGFS was positive for the Council as it included additional funding of:

·       £153,000 grant to compensate the Council for the Business Rates Multiplier not increasing in line with inflation

·       £237,000 lower tier services grant (this was a one-off new grant to support services)

·       £623,000 additional COVID 19 funding to help fund the impact of COVID 19 into the new year

·       £100,000 Section 31 grant for local council tax support

·       £192,000 New Homes Bonus grant for 2021-22 only

·       The ability to raise council tax by a maximum of £5 (2.83%) rather than maximum of 2.0%, this additional increase would generate a further £90,000 in council tax income

The Joint Executive Advisory Board had considered the outline budget at its meeting held 11 November 2020. 

The Chief Finance Officer (CFO) presented her statutory report to the Council, a copy of which was appended to the main report. The CFO’s report provided information about the strategic context within which the budget had been prepared, the medium-term financial plan, the robustness of the estimates, adequacy of reserves and budget risks.  Councillors noted that the Council had a budget gap of £1.6million in 2022-23 which would rise to £5.9million by 2025-26.  Appendix 3 to the report listed the growth and savings which had been included in the General Fund Summary.  In noting the financial risk register at Appendix 4 to the report, the Council acknowledged that the level of reserves were currently sufficient to meet the Council’s risks.

The financial monitoring report for the first eight months of 2020-21 had been reported to the Corporate Governance and Standards Committee on 14 January 2021.  The projected net expenditure on the General Fund for the current financial year had been estimated to be £8.1million more than the original estimate due mainly to the COVID19 pandemic.  Any ongoing variances between actual expenditure and budget identified in 2020-21 had been taken into account when preparing the budget for 2021-22.

Following the Executive’s approval of the outline  ...  view the full minutes text for item 76