Agenda item

2021/22 Budget and 2021-26 Medium Term Financial Strategy - Background Information and Proposals from Corporate Board

This report makes available, for Elected Members, the latest financial information that will underpin the 2021/22 budget and MTFS and the views of Corporate Board on that information.

Minutes:

Councillor Peter Butlin introduced this item explaining that the report is the annual statement of Corporate Board that will inform and support the budget setting in February of 2021. The report was written prior to the announcement of the 2020 Spending Review. As a result, the report contained gaps in information. Cabinet was informed that the Covid-19 Pandemic had forced a review of the Medium-Term Financial Strategy. In addition, Cabinet was requested to note that the result of the local government settlement is waited. Councillor Butlin cautioned that in the light of current pressures there may be a need to choose between increases in taxation or the imposition of more savings on services.

 

The report was welcomed by Councillor Jerry Roodhouse (Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group) who thanked officers for their hard work on the report.

 

Councillor Keith Kondakor referred to challenges presented by the EU Transition. He asked whether calculations had taken account of a possible fall in the value of the pound as a result of leaving the EU. In response, Councillor Kondakor was informed that the calculations and conclusions had taken account of many factors of which the EU Transition was one.

 

Councillor Dave Parsons (Deputy Leader of the Labour Group) expressed reservations over increases to Council Taxes adding that these should be limited in the future. In response to Councillor Parsons, Councillor Izzi Seccombe (Leader of the Council and Chair of Cabinet) observed that the precept to supplement funding for social care is a tax that was introduced to fill a gap. She added that Council Tax raised in Warwickshire should be spent in the County and that the government should work to establish the long term future of social care and how it will be funded.

 

Resolved:

 

That Cabinet agrees to:

 

(1)      Develop their draft 2021/22 Budget and 2021-26 Medium Term Financial Strategy proposals, taking into account the information presented in this report and the views of Corporate Board on that information;

 

(2)      Authorise Corporate Board to begin any preparatory work necessary to deliver the budget proposals, prior to the final decision on the budget on 8 February 2021; and

 

(3)      Ask Corporate Board to continue work to identify further invest-to-save opportunities that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Authority, minimise the service reductions needed and release some of the reserves being used to balance the Medium Term Financial Strategy to deliver the ambitions of the Council Plan.

Supporting documents: