Agenda item

Council Budget 2015/16 and Capital Programme Change for 2014/15

Minutes:

A report by the Executive Director Finance and Public Protection had been circulated together with a separate document which detailed the Executive's budget and council tax proposals.

 

It was moved, seconded and

 

RESOLVED

 

(1)  That there be one debate;

 

(2)  That Councillor M S Jones, Executive Councillor for Finance and Property, in introducing and moving the budget and in responding to issues raised during the debate be allowed to speak without limit of time;

 

(3)  That proposers of the amendments each be allowed to speak without limit of time;

 

(4)  That Councillors seconding the motions, each be allowed to speak for 6 minutes; 

 

(5)  That other speakers each be allowed to speak for 3 minutes;

 

(6)  That no further substantial amendments be moved (other than the original amendments moved by Group Leaders).

 

It was moved and seconded:

 

(1)  That the responses to consultation on the Council's budget proposals as contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix D "Budget Consultation" pages 32 - 41) be noted;

 

(2)  That the Section 151 Officer's statement on the Robustness of the Budget and the Adequacy of Reserves (Section 10 – "Section 151 Officer's Statement on the Robustness of the Budget and Adequacy of Reserves", pages 19 - 22) be noted;

 

(3)  That the Impact Analysis relating to increasing the Council Tax by 1.9% in 2015/1 (Appendix C – Impact Analysis relating to increasing the Council Tax by 1.9% in 2015/16, pages 26 - 31) be noted;

 

(4)  That the service revenue budgets for 2015/16 contained in the appended Budget Book, (Table 2 "Net Service Revenue Budget 2015/16 and change over previous year", page 9) be agreed;

 

(5)  That the capital programme and its funding contained in the appended Budget Book (Section 7 "Capital Programme", page 16) and Appendix M ("Capital Programme", Page 60) be agreed;

 

(6)  That the County Council element of the council tax for a Band D property at £1,085.94 for 2015/16 contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix B "County Precept 2015/16 page 25) be agreed;

 

And that together these form the Council's Budget

 

(7)  That the Council's Financial Strategy contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix E "Financial Strategy", pages 42-49) be approved;

 

(8)  That the prudential targets for capital finance be agreed and the prudential indicators contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix L "Prudential Indicators", pages 58 -59) be noted;

 

(9)  That a minimum revenue provision (MRP) be based on the asset life method and made in equal instalments over the estimated life of the assets acquired through borrowing as set out in the appended Budget Book (Section 9 "Minimum Revenue Provision", page 18) be agreed;

 

(10)That the changes to the 2014/15 capital programme as detailed at paragraph 1.20 to 1.21 of the report be agreed.

 

An amendment (i) was moved and seconded by UKIP as follows:-

 

 

"The UKIP Group proposes the following amendments to the Council Budget report:

 

Funding for the proposed changes to come from the additional revenue from growth in the council tax base and collection fund surpluses plus a modest growth in business rate income – some £10.413m in total. In addition a portion of the existing earmarked reserve for local welfare provision (£120k) has been applied to that service.

 

Particularly this year, because future funding is unknown financial territory - not least because of the coming general election; fluctuations in the FTSE, but also because it is difficult to forecast exactly what effect zero-inflation is going to have contract prices (and LCC have over 1,700) the LCC Financial Team have had a very difficult task in composing the 2015/16 Council Budget.

 

Although my guess would be that the financial positives will balance out the financial negatives and it will be business as usual!   In fact, the only thing that can be accurately predicted is the continued reduction in local government funding and budgets.

 

This is why this year’s additional amount of funding available, i.e. £10,413m pounds, has made composing UKIPs alternative budget particularly easy. No ‘stealing from Peter to pay Paul’ or raiding the reserves.

 

People of Lincolnshire are well aware of the impact on both services and employment caused by the savage budget cut-backs at LCC from Central Government.  They are also aware that in order to preserve front-line services in the future, we also need to be prudent.

 

LCC would like to place all the additional funding back into the Volatility Reserves to help cushion against future budget reductions.  But, UKIP see it also as an opportunity to preserve some jobs and provide some extra funding into areas of most need.  Whilst at the same time recognising the vital importance of maintaining reserves in order to meet the demands of future Government reductions in the RSG.

 

1)  HIGHWAYS & TRANSPORT:     Increase revenue funding by £0.5m

           

Savings of £1.197m are required for 2015/16 including:-

‘Rationalising the Counties Area Maintenance Teams – reduction of 3 Teams saving £0.470m’

 

Although this is a contractual provision, if 3 teams are reduced that is somewhere in the order of 10-15 working people become unemployed.  In order to prevent this we think £500k should be allocated from the additional funding, specifically to maintain the Area Maintenance Teams. 

 

The £500k one-off expenditure for the Ride & Park fund for the Magna Carta Exhibition in 2015/16 will not be required again next year and can be applied to increase the H & T revenue budget and ensuring there should be sufficient monies to maintain the AMT teams in 2016/17 too.

 

2)  ADULT CARE :    Increase revenue funding by £2.5m

£1.000m Towards Mental Health Prevention e.g. The Shine Staying Well Project.

£1.000m Towards the Carers Budget (which has not been increased.)

£0.5m be transferred into a flagged Adult Care volatility fund.

 

3)  Local Welfare Budget – Increase funding by £120k from Flagged Reserves

 

4)  How we Do Our Business – Democratic Services:  Increase revenue funding by     .....£56k

To mitigate the necessity to review arrangements for servicing civic responsibilities for the Chairman of the Council.

 

5) The balance of the additional income - £7.357m to be placed into the Volatility fund as a cushion against future funding reductions.

 

The Director of Finance & Public Protection has confirmed that these proposals are compliant with the existing Financial Strategy of the Council and represent a balanced budget for 2015/16. Some proposals have ongoing cost implications beyond next year which will need to be considered as part of future budget cycles. The proposals will increase the contribution required from reserves to balance the budget next year by £3.056m to £25.227m."

 

An amendment (ii) was moved and seconded by the Labour Group as follows:

 

"This year’s County Council budget is being presented at a time when Lincolnshire is still suffering from the austerity economics of the Coalition Government with large falls in living standards and cuts in public services.

 

It is not just the County Council in crisis; it’s the NHS locally under huge financial pressure, the police without funds to fully protect the public and the District Councils cutting back, all at the same time.

 

We know we cannot put everything right in one year but we believe we have to start the process and our amendment goes some way towards that.

 

What we are proposing to do first of all is to protect the public. In addition to maintaining our support for Lincolnshire police and their community safety role, we will ensure that there is no reduction in fire safety by maintaining the number of firefighters that go to a fire and keeping open fire stations like Lincoln North.

 

Secondly we will protect essential services for those who need help, and protect vulnerable people in our community. We will keep our professionally run library service, maintain the Citizens Advice Service in Children’s Centres, set aside money to support housing services for vulnerable people, give a boost to funding for adult care and start to address the poverty wages so many of our people try to live on.

 

Thirdly we will protect the charities and voluntary groups who do so much essential work in our communities.  In the last five years many of these have seen funding withdrawn by the council while the demand for their services has increased hugely due to the run down in public services from the council.

 

We will therefore provide support for Homestart, ensure that the YMCA receives sufficient funding to maintain its housing support services and set up a new fund to provide help when charities and voluntary groups need it.

 

Cllr John Hough, on behalf of The Labour Group therefore to move this amendment:

           

It is proposed that the following amendments are made to the circulated 'Council Budget 2015/16' report:

 

Revenue

 

Restore CAB work in Children's Centres (Page 65 line 3) £158k

 

Restore Preventing and Tackling Fire and Emergencies and Planning and

 

Responding to Emergencies (Page 91 lines 5 and 6) £551k

 

Restore Community Safety initiatives relating to PCSOs (Page 91 line 7) £300k

 

Increase Libraries spending to restore it to December 2013 level (Page 82 line 6) £800k

 

Restore Homestart funding from Children's Services budget £436k

 

Introduce Living Wage for all County Council staff –Living Wage £900k

YMCA cuts in budget – housing support services in Lincoln £500k

 

Introduce spending of £1m to meet unexpected cost pressures in Adult Social

Care services and place this in an earmarked reserve  £1million

 

Capital spending

 

4 way pedestrian crossing at Bridge End Road/Springfield Road junction in  Grantham £300k

 

Commuter Park and Ride Lincoln preparatory work £1m

 

Communities Initiatives Fund £5m

 

Funding

 

Capital spending of £6.3m has been funded from the £15m capital contingency budget for next year leaving a balance of £8.7m.

 

The revenue budget proposals total £4.645m and have been funded from the additional council tax and business rate income of £ 10.413m available next year.

 

This would increase the call on reserves in the 2015/16 budget by £4.645m to £26.816m.

 

The Director of Finance & Public Protection has confirmed that these proposals are compliant with the existing Financial Strategy of the Council and represent a balanced budget for 2015/16. Some proposals have ongoing cost implications beyond next year which will need to be considered as part of future budget cycles."

 

An amendment (iii) was moved and seconded by the Lincolnshire Independents Group as follows:

 

"It is proposed that the following amendments are made to the circulated 'Council Budget 2015/16' report.

 

Better solutions:  Libraries

 

We support Pauline Palmer's Proposal to make a £1.73m saving and keep all of the static libraries and mobile libraries open. Recognising the current legal situation, we understand it cannot be implemented today. The libraries would therefore need to be reinstated for this forthcoming year in the first instance to the December 2013 service (£800,000), but would bring substantial savings in the following years as Pauline’s proposal was implemented.

 

Fairer school transport: 

 

The current system is unfair to 25% of residents of the County whose children cannot access free school transport to the school to which they are best suited, by accident of their rural location. Some parents cannot therefore afford to send the children to the school that is right for them.  In order for all residents to receive fair access to the schools correctly suited to their children, including grammar schools, a sum of £2m put aside to equalise the           fair access to schools. In future years, this will be returned as savings are made across the board fairly.

 

Highways

 

We believe that the reduction in highways revenue maintenance is a false economy.

 

Whilst the highways asset protection grant for improving roads has risen £9m to £31m, the current general maintenance, by area maintenance teams, is reduced by £470,000 in the proposed budget. We believe this puts people at risk in road safety. We propose not taking out these funds of £470,000. This will bring savings in the longer term by making sure that road maintenance is kept in order at the right time, reducing knock on costs.

 

Domiciliary Care

 

£1m towards providing a sustainable service for domiciliary care, that includes payment of staff travelling between clients. Currently the provision pays minimum wage for piecework, face to face time with clients, and nothing for the time it takes to travel from one person to another.  Care workers should be paid for the time they are at work, like any other job. This is protection for   the future, as collapse of the service is very difficult on the people we serve and indeed on the budget, as emergency failing of our statutory duty could be very expensive.

           

Commercialism

 

Our council needs to make a more determined effort not just to make savings, but to make better use of our property to create wealth in the county. Part of our current resources need to be directed into this area. Similarly more support for small businesses does not require a change in the budget, but a small change in direction.

 

The above measures require additional revenue budget of £4.27m in 2015/16 and it is proposed to use some of the £10.413m additional revenue from council tax and business rate income next year to fund these initiatives. This would increase the use of reserves next year by that sum to £26.441m.

 

The Director of Finance & Public Protection has confirmed that these proposals are compliant with the existing Financial Strategy of the Council and represent a balanced budget for 2015/16. Some proposals have ongoing cost implications beyond next year which will need to be considered as part of future budget cycles."

 

In accordance with the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 recorded votes were taken for each of the amendments and the original motion in the following order:

 

A recorded vote was held for the amendment (i), and upon being put to the vote, the amendment was lost.

 

Details of recorded vote taken:

 

Those voting for the amendment (i):

 

Councillors M G Allan, A M Austin, R G Fairman, R L Foulkes, D M Hunter-Clarke, R J Hunter-Clarke, T Keywood-Wainwright, C E D Mair, D McNally, Mrs M J Overton MBE, S L W Palmer, Mrs H N J Powell, Mrs A Reynolds, Mrs J Smith and P Wood.

 

Those voting FOR – 15

 

Those voting against the amendment (i):

 

Councillors B Adams, W J Aron, Mrs P A Bradwell, D Brailsford, A Bridges, Mrs J Brockway, M Brookes, J P Churchill, K J Clarke, C J Davie, R G Davies, P M Dilks, S R Dodds, G J Ellis, I G Fleetwood, M J Hill OBE, J D Hough, D C Hoyes MBE, N I Jackson, A J Jesson, M S Jones, B W Keimach, R C Kirk, C E H Marfleet, J R Marriott, B McAuley, C Morgan, N Murray, Mrs A M Newton, P J O'Connor, C R Oxby, C Pain, N H Pepper, R B Parker, R J Phillips, Mrs S Rawlins, Mrs J M Renshaw, R A  Renshaw, P A Robinson, R A Shore, C L Strange, Mrs C A Talbot, T M Trollope-Bellew, A H Turner MBE JP, S M Tweedale, W S Webb, Mrs S Woolley, L Wootten, R Wootten, C N Worth, mrs S Wray and B Young.

 

Those voting AGAINST - 52

 

A recorded vote was taken for the amendment (ii), and upon being put to the vote, the amendment was lost.

 

Details of recorded vote taken:

 

Those voting for the amendment (ii):

 

Councillors M G Allan, K J Clarke, P M Dilks, S R Dodds, G J Ellis, J D Hough, N I Jackson, T Keywood-Wainwright, R C Kirk, C Morgan, N Murray, Mrs M J Overton MBE, S L W Palmer, R B Parker, Mrs H N J Powell, Mrs J M Renshaw, R A Renshaw and P Wood.

 

Those voting FOR – 18

 

Those voting against the amendment (ii):

 

Councillors B Adams, W J Aron, A M Austin, Mrs P A Bradwell, D Brailsford, A Bridges, Mrs J Brockway, M Brookes, J P Churchill, C J Davie, R G Davies, R G Fairman, I G Fleetwood, R L Foulkes, M J Hill OBE, D C Hoyes, D M Hunter-Clarke, R J Hunter-Clarke, A J Jesson, M S Jones, B W Keimach, C E D Mair, C E H Marfleet, J R Marriott, B McAuley, D McNally, Mrs A M Newton, P J O'Connor, C R Oxby, C Pain, N H Pepper, R J Phillips, Mrs S Rawlins, Mrs A Reynolds, P A Robinson, R A Shore, Mrs J Smith, C L Strange, Mrs C A Talbot, T M Trollope-Bellew, A H Turner MBE JP, S M Tweedale, W S Webb, Mrs S Woolley, L Wootten, R Wootten, N Worth, Mrs S Wray and B Young.

 

Those voting AGAINST – 49

 

A recorded vote for the amendment (iii) was taken.  Upon being put to the vote, the amendment was lost.

 

Details of the recorded vote taken:

 

Those voting for the amendment (iii):

 

Councillors M G Allan, A M Austin, K J Clarke, P M Dilks, S R Dodds, G J Ellis, R G Fairman, R L Foulkes, J D Hough, D M Hunter-Clarke, R J Hunter-Clarke, N I Jackson, A J Jesson, T Keywood-Wainwright, R C Kirk, C E D Mair, B McAuley, C Morgan, N Murray, Mrs M J Overton MBE, C Pain, S L W Palmer, R B Parker, Mrs H N J Powell, Mrs A Reynolds, Mrs J M Renshaw, R A Renshaw, Mrs J Smith and P Wood.

 

Those voting FOR – 29

 

Those voting against the amendment (iii):

 

Councillors B Adams, W J Aron, Mrs P A Bradwell, D Brailsford, A Bridges, Mrs J Brockway, M Brookes, J P Churchill, C J Davie, R G Davies, I G Fleetwood, M J Hill OBE, D C Hoyes, M S Jones, B W Keimach, C E H Marfleet, J R Marriott, D McNally, Mrs A M Newton, P J O'Connor, C R Oxby, N H Pepper, R J Phillips, Mrs S Rawlins, P A Robinson, R A Shore, C L Strange, Mrs C A Talbot, T M Trollope-Bellew, A H Turner MBE JP, S M Tweedale, W S Webb, Mrs S Woolley, L Wootten, R Wootten, N Worth, Mrs S Wray and B Young.

 

Those voting AGAINST – 38

 

A recorded vote on the original motion was taken.  Upon being put to the vote, the motion was carried.

 

Details of the recorded vote taken:

 

Those voting for the original motion:

 

Councillors B Adams, W J Aron, A M Austin, Mrs P A Bradwell, D Brailsford, A Bridges, Mrs J Brockway, M Brookes, J P Churchill, C J Davie, R G Davies, R G Fairman, I G Fleetwood, M J Hill OBED C Hoyes, M S Jones, B  Keimach, T Keywood-Wainwright, C E H Marfleet, J R Marriott, Mrs A M Newton, P J O'Connor, C R Oxby, N H Pepper, R J Phillips, Mrs S Rawlins, P A Robinson, R A Shore, C L Strange, Mrs C A Talbot, T M Trollope-Bellew, A H turner MBE JP, S M Tweedale, W S Webb, P Wood, Mrs S Woolley, L Wootten, R Wootten, N Worth, Mrs S Wray and B Young.

 

Those voting FOR – 41

 

Those voting against the motion:

 

Councillors M G Allan, K J Clarke, P M Dilks, S R Dodds, G J Ellis, R G Fairman, R L Foulkes, J D Hough, D M Hunter-Clarke, R J Hunter-Clarke, N I Jackson, A J Jesson, R C Kirk, C E D Mair, B McAuley, D McNally, C Morgan, N Murray, Mrs M J Overton MBE, C Pain, S L W Palmer, R B Parker, Mrs H N J Powell, Mrs A Reynolds, Mrs J M Renshaw, R A Renshaw and Mrs J Smith.

 

Those voting AGAINST – 26

 

RESOLVED

 

(1)  That the responses to consultation on the Council's budget proposals as contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix D "Budget Consultation" pages 32 - 41) be noted;

 

(2)  That the Section 151 Officer's statement on the Robustness of the Budget and the Adequacy of Reserves (Section 10 – "Section 151 Officer's Statement on the Robustness of the Budget and Adequacy of Reserves", pages 19 - 22) be noted;

 

(3)  That the Impact Analysis relating to increasing the Council Tax by 1.9% in 2015/1 (Appendix C – Impact Analysis relating to increasing the Council Tax by 1.9% in 2015/16, pages 26 - 31) be noted;

 

(4)  That the service revenue budgets for 2015/16 contained in the appended Budget Book, (Table 2 "Net Service Revenue Budget 2015/16 and change over previous year", page 9) be agreed;

 

(5)  That the capital programme and its funding contained in the appended Budget Book (Section 7 "Capital Programme", page 16) and Appendix M ("Capital Programme", Page 60) be agreed;

 

(6)  That the County Council element of the council tax for a Band D property at £1,085.94 for 2015/16 contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix B "County Precept 2015/16 page 25) be agreed;

 

And that together these form the Council's Budget

 

(7)  That the Council's Financial Strategy contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix E "Financial Strategy", pages 42-49) be approved;

 

(8)  That the prudential targets for capital finance be agreed and the prudential indicators contained in the appended Budget Book (Appendix L "Prudential Indicators", pages 58 -59) be noted;

 

(9)  That a minimum revenue provision (MRP) be based on the asset life method and made in equal instalments over the estimated life of the assets acquired through borrowing as set out in the appended Budget Book (Section 9 "Minimum Revenue Provision", page 18) be agreed;

 

(10)That the changes to the 2014/15 capital programme as detailed at                           paragraph 1.20 to 1.21 of the report be agreed.

 

 

Supporting documents:

 

 
 
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