Issue - meetings

2024/25 Budget and 2024/29 Medium Term Financial Strategy

Meeting: 08/02/2024 - County Council (Item 2)

2 2024/25 Budget and 2024/29 Medium Term Financial Strategy pdf icon PDF 64 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Peter Butlin (Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance and Property) introduced the item by thanking the finance team for their assistance and hard work in developing the budget. He noted media coverage of councils in financial difficulty and offered reassurance that

Warwickshire County Council was not one of them. He drew attention to the Council’s good performance on the Cipfa resilience index and the supportive views of the external auditors which were shared at the previous meeting.  He then proceeded to set out the Conservative Group’s budget proposals as contained in the appendix to the published report. In doing so he emphasised the following points:

 

  • The difficult political and economic environment in which the budget was set and the uncertain timing and impacts of key national policy choices around adult social care reform, the broken children’s social care market, home to school transport, climate change and the fair funding review of central government support for local authorities.
  • Rising demand for services as a result of a growing population of older people, increasing numbers of children and families needing support and communities under pressure from the rising cost of living.
  • Despite the uncertain environment, the budget proposals provided flexibility and a degree of resilience heading into an uncertain future. Difficult decisions had been taken and challenges were being met head on.
  • Three areas were highlighted to underline the Conservative commitment to the most vulnerable in the community:

                 investment of over £28m to meet the growing numbers and cost of supporting elderly citizens and those vulnerable adults who need help;

                 investment of more than £8m into children’s social care services to meet the increased cost and demand for children’s placements; and

                 investment of almost £9m in home to school transport to ensure services to mainstream and SEND pupils were continued in line with policy whilst being able to respond to the increasing demand and cost of the service.

  • Provision in the capital programme for £109m to support the delivery of the 2024 business plans of the Warwickshire Property and Development Group and the Warwickshire Investment Fund.  The capital programme would invest at least £125m over the next five years making sure Warwickshire had a thriving economy with the right jobs, training, skills and infrastructure.
  • Investment of over £36m each year to maintain Warwickshire’s infrastructure with over half of this funding invested in roads.
  • The focus for the next year would be:

                 Making SEND a key priority and investing in helping many more children and young people receive the education they need within mainstream settings and investing in support for children with education, health and care plans to improve their communication, confidence and life chances;

                 Driving  cost reductions through investment in digital, data and automation technologies, adopting more commercial approaches to investments and continued support for investment that enabled buoyant business and household taxbases;

                 Opening more children’s homes;

                 Commence development of the Top Farm site providing additional housing and enabling a new school;

•  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2