Agenda item

The Committee considered the Revenue Budget Strategy 2016/17 to 2018/19 (Appendix A) which had been endorsed by the Executive Board for consultation purposes at its meeting on 16th of November 2015. It was advised that Welsh Government (WG) had announced the provisional settlement on the 9^th of December and that Carmarthenshire would see a 1% cut in budget rather than the 3.3% on which the Strategy was predicated. This equated to an additional £7.5m for the 2016/17 budget however this also included the Outcome Agreement Grant. WG had funded £35m to protect education and £21m to protect social care on an all Wales basis which equated to £2.1m and £1.3m respectively for Carmarthenshire. It was still unclear what the protection of school budgets entailed. Eleven grants had not yet been confirmed however the reduction in the Waste Grant (now the Single Environment Grant) was far less than anticipated at 6% rather than the 25-50% which was previously indicated by the Minister. In summary, the deficit in efficiency savings identified for 2016/17 would not now be needed, however delivery of the £13.6m identified savings was required.

Concern was expressed about the timing of the WG announcement of the final settlement in early March, given the need to set the level of Council Tax by 11^th of March. It was asked what might be the impact of any variations in the final settlement.  The Director of Corporate Services advised that this was difficult to answer. A means of accommodating minor adjustments were being planned for and WG officers had previously indicated that they were not anticipating much movement. The picture would be clearer in early February following the end of the consultation period on 20^th of January. The overall timescales and the lateness of the announcements were linked to the Westminster Comprehensive Spending Review.

Disappointment was expressed that the protection of education was unclear. The Director of Corporate Services stated that our Strategy is to plan to passport the £2.1m onto schools which would reduce the efficiency savings they were expected to deliver in 2016/17 to £3.4m. The Chief Executive advised that he was representing Local Government in dialogue with WG about the protection of education. It was his understanding that all local authorities were planning to pass their share of the £35m onto schools. There was also ongoing dialogue about potentially including £90m specific education grants in the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) which would mean £5.4m more for Carmarthenshire. He added that 4 rural authorities had suffered the highest cuts under the provisional settlement and WG was proposing a rural deprivation grant of £5m to assist them.

It was noted that the benchmarking of support services across Wales had been referred to in the member budget seminars. An update was requested. The Director of Corporate Services stated that the Regional Treasurers Group of 6 local authorities was working through the KPMG report commissioned by WG to consider the reasons for any variations. It was however some months from conclusion.

The Charging Digest was referred to and it was asked why some fees had not increased. The ACE Regeneration & Policy advised that generally increases were based on inflation however some within her remit were statutory fees, whilst others were set on a market basis. The Director of Corporate Services added that the general policy was that fees should be increased at a minimum in line with inflation unless there was a justified reason not too, for example, the level of inflation was sometimes so low that the administrative cost of implementing an increase outweighed the benefit.

Further information was requested in relation to the new charge for payroll overpayment invoicing of external organisations. The Interim Head of Financial Services advised that that the charge would be applied where organisations had not notified payroll of transfers or terminations. 

RESOLVED to:

6.1       Accept the report.

6.2       Endorse the Charging Digest.