Issue - meetings

The Final 2024/25 Budget and Medium Term Financial Strategy (2025/26 to 2028/29) including Capital Programme is to be presented to the Panel for comments.

Executive Councillor: B Mickelburgh

By means of a report by the Director of Finance and Corporate Resources (a copy of which was appended in the Minute Book) the Final 2024/25 Budget and Medium-term Financial Strategy (2025/26 to 2028/29) including Capital Programme was presented to the Panel.

Following a question from Councillor Gleadow regarding the introduction of the garden waste subscription service, the Panel heard that this was introduced due to jeopardy in future budgets, there was a commitment to progress this service and to delay this would result in a considerable operational deficit alongside costs incurred by the project implementation and refunds to those who had already paid.

Councillor Martin enquired about the reasons for a 668% increase on the previous budget under the Head of Service Strategic Insights and Delivery line, following which the Panel heard that the reasons for this would be sought and brought back to the Panel at a later date.

In response to a further question from Councillor Martin, the Panel heard that in order to achieve good energy prices over the last couple of years, the Council had joined a framework agreement where energy was purchased in advance, resulting in the Council benefitting from lower rates when prices were rising but that consumption will continue at higher rates initially, due to the commitment, even though the market price are starting to decrease. In addition it was noted that the Council’s recent decarbonisation works had moved the Council’s energy usage from gas to electricity which has a higher monetary cost.

Following a question from Councillor Harvey, the Panel heard that the increase in the Finance and Resources figure in Table 21 included the creation of the new reserves going forward as well as other costs such as MRP calculations.

Councillor Pickering enquired why there were lines within the Fees and

Charges document which were showing a 0% increase. The Panel heard that some of these were outside of the Council’s control as they were statutory fees, that some fees such as One Leisure fees had increased but that all fees had been discussed with relevant portfolio holders and decisions made based on those.

Councillor Jennings highlighted a discrepancy between figures quoted as being in the MTFS for the Garden Waste Subscription Service and figures which had been presented to the Panel last year. The Panel heard that there had been a cost included in the business case relating to possible additional charges from the County Council. There has been no advisement of any additional costs that will be payable, so these figures have not been reflected through the MTFS.

The Panel heard, following a further question from Councillor Jennings on the decrease in the number of Council Tax properties compared to last year’s MTFS, that the Council Tax team had undertaken work to ensure a more accurate figure in this year’s budget rather than an estimation which had been used in previous years, therefore the team were fully confident on the figures given within the Council Tax base.

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