Agenda and draft minutes

(To receive a presentation by Michelle Grady, Assistant Director – Finance, which details the Budget Proposals for 2023/24, following consideration by the Executive at its meeting on 4 January 2023)

A list of attendees is detailed at Appendix A to these notes.

Councillor M A Whittington, Executive Support Councillor for Resources and Communications welcomed everyone to the meeting.  Attendees were informed that this meeting was part of the normal consultation process which the authority undertook when setting its budget and provided the opportunity for partners and other organisations to take part in the consultation.  It was reported that the proposed budget was also examined by each of the County Council's scrutiny committees who would look in more detail at the budgets for individual service areas.  Recommendations would then be made to the full Council at its meeting on 17 February 2023, where the budget would be formally approved.

Michelle Grady, Assistant Director – Finance and Adam Hopley, Strategic Finance Lead - Corporate, introduced a presentation on "Budget Engagement Meeting with Key Stakeholders, 27 January 2023", which was a consultation exercise led by the County Council to highlight the Council's current budget and financial outlook for public services over the coming year. 

During discussion the following main points were highlighted:

·       In terms of the economic and financial context, inflation had peaked at 11.1% in October 2023, and it was noted this would have been higher without government intervention in energy prices etc.

·       In the government’s Autumn Statement, specific consideration was given to the current economic issues, and in the short term there would be more fiscal intervention as the economy got back to a more stable point.  In terms of the medium term outlook, once the economy was growing again, then the investment in public services would grow at a slower rate.

·       There had been many world factors which had contributed to the high inflation rate, however the Bank of England was able to influence this through the interest rates, which had been increasing gradually over the past year, and it was expected that they would increase further.  It was hoped that this would start to bring the inflation rate back down.  In terms of impacts on the County Council, this increased the costs of borrowing for schemes included in the capital investment programme.

·       This was now a much riskier environment financially, than it had been for a number of years.

·       The Autumn Statement had a number of headlines for local government, which included the delay to the social care reforms of two years, however, the funding which had been earmarked for this had been retained within Adult Social Care (ASC).  There was also an additional investment of £1bn for 2023-24 and £1.7bn in 2024-25 to aid with hospital discharge.  The County Council was also able to increase its council tax by a maximum of 5% (3% general and 2% for the ASC precept).  Another consideration would be the increase to the National Living Wage by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour from April 2023.

·       In terms of the provisional local government finance settlement it was highlighted that LCC would receive a notional £62.5m increase in core spending power.  This would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.