Meeting documents

Cabinet received a report which provided information affecting the Council’s revenue budget for 2019/20 in order for the Cabinet to make recommendations to Council on 27 February 2019 regarding the Council’s budget and council tax for 2019/20.

The Director of Resources went through the report in detail as follows:-

• The announcement of the decision to create a unitary authority in Buckinghamshire from 2020/21 did not affect the requirement on the Council to set a legal and prudent budget for 2019/20 that addressed the Council’s aims and objectives. However, it would be necessary at a corporate level to make provisions within reserves for the transition costs to the new unitary authority.
• The 19/20 Government funding figures were better than expected at the time of setting the 2018/19 budget as the Government had decided to cancel the ‘negative RSG’ of £414k planned for 2019/20.
• South Bucks District Council had been confirmed, alongside Bucks Authorities as part of the business rates pilot scheme. Bucks Authorities had formed a pool in order to retain more of the growth and for 2019/20 the pool would be expanded to also include Wycombe under the Government’s 75% Business Rates retention pilot scheme.
• Since the December Cabinet there had been two amendments to the draft budget relating to the reduction in the Housing Benefit Administration grant of £20k and the additional car parking income of £30k. Car parking charges were still to be discussed at the Environment Policy Advisory Group in March.
• The overall effect of these changes would mean a budget requirement of £7,642k which would result in a council tax increase of £5 (3.2%) which was the maximum permitted for the Council by Government. This would equate to District element of Council tax of £163 for a Band D property.
• The revised fees and charges were noted.
• In respect of the Planning and Economic Development fees and charges, pre-planning charges had been reviewed and benchmarked against other local authorities and a report looking at this in further detail would be considered by the Planning and Economic Development Policy Advisory Group.
• The proposed 2019/20 budget did not require any use of the General Reserves to fund general expenditure which was an improvement on the position reported to Cabinet in December. However, consideration needed to be given to earmarking some of the reserves to fund the implementation costs of the new unitary authority. The original proposal for South Bucks District’s share was £1.552 m.
• Earmarked reserves would be utilised for the Local Development Document reserve, Economic Development reserve and the National Infrastructure reserve.
• A number of projects were being progressed to implement further savings as a result of the reduction in Government funding such as the Planning Shared Service implementation and the Customer Experience Strategy.
• Section E of the report set out the advice from the Director of Resources identifying the main financial risks to the Council in the forthcoming year, such as a shortfall on income targets, cost of major planning inquiries and enforcement action, cost of temporary accommodation and letting income from Capswood offices. However, the Council was in a sound financial position with a prudent level of reserves.

Cabinet expressed their thanks to the Director of Resources and his team for their work on the budget.