Agenda item

Cabinet were asked to consider the recommendations of the Budget Scrutiny Inquiry Group which was formed to scrutinise the Medium Term Financial Plan 2024/25 to 2026/27 and Capital Programme 2024/25 to 2027/28 that Cabinet had approved on 4 January 2024.

RESOLVED –

(1)               That the Budget Scrutiny Inquiry Group, as well as the supporting Officers, be thanked for their work and subsequent recommendations.

(2)               That Cabinet’s responses to the Budget Scrutiny report 2024 and recommendations, as detailed at the meeting, be agreed.

Note: a complete breakdown of the scrutiny recommendations and Cabinet’s responses can be found here.

Cabinet were asked to consider the recommendations of the Budget Scrutiny Inquiry Group which was formed to scrutinise the Draft Medium Term Financial Plan 2024/25 to 2026/27 and Capital Programme 2024/25 to 2027/28 that Cabinet approved on 4 January 2024.  As the Chairman, Councillor R Bagge, had given his apologies, the Vice Chairman (Councillor M Walsh) presented the report.

In January, the Finance and Resources Select Committee carried out its review of the draft budget. This involved three full days of questioning with each portfolio session attended by Cabinet Members and their deputies, the Section 151 officer, Corporate Directors and Heads of Finance. It was a cross-party constructive review on behalf of residents for Cabinet to consider. The report included 5 recommendations across the portfolios. Overall, the Inquiry Group supported the budget proposals and increase in Council Tax and acknowledged the tough decisions proposed in a difficult financial climate and rising social care costs. It was clear that there was not much room to manoeuvre given increased cost pressures for the Council through increased demand and complexity.  In particular the Inquiry Group wanted to highlight three key areas of the budget:

1.      The use of capital expenditure across a number of portfolio areas to alleviate revenue spend over the MTFP and the need to safeguard against project slippage;

2.      The significant savings built into the budget through increased foster families and;

3.      The risk of the Dedicated Schools Grant deficit growing.

The Budget Scrutiny Inquiry Group’s observations, key findings and recommendations were set out in the report attached at Appendix 1 to the Cabinet report.  The Vice-Chairman extended his thanks to all Members of Cabinet and officers for attending the sessions and their contributions as this helped the Inquiry Group gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities for the Council. He also thanked the review group, Councillors R Bagge, M Ayub, P Cooper, D Dhillon, G Harris, I Macpherson, S Morgan, R Newcombe, A Schaefer, C Oliver and S Wilson for all their hard work and the Section 151 Officer Dave Skinner and Chris Ward, Senior Scrutiny Officer for his support in producing the report.

The Leader thanked the Vice-Chairman and the Review Group for the constructive cross party work that had been undertaken and then went through the proposed Cabinet response to the recommendations in the report.  In particular, the following points were made:

Recommendation 1: That Cabinet was recommended not to agree this recommendation.  The MTFP set out how the Council was deploying its resources and included those schemes that were to be delivered within the available resources.  As agreed in the response to the recommendation in 2023, the capital element of the MTFP would make clear which of the projects in the capital programme had an agreed business case, and which still required a business case to be approved before the allocated funding could be released. This would provide greater clarity about the status of projects in the programme and manage expectations. 

Recommendation 2: That this recommendation be agreed in part, as per the proposed Cabinet response, as the Council had already undertaken significant work to consider the viability of the provision of an in-house transport fleet. 

Recommendations 3-5: That Cabinet was recommended to agree these recommendations, as per the proposed Cabinet response:-

·       The Finance & Resources Select Committee should receive an in-depth confidential report on Home to School Transport costs which also includes information on the growth model.

·       In light of historic and ongoing concerns raised by the Audit & Governance Committee, the financial management model and/or the adverse financial position of Farnham Park Trust must be resolved in 2024-25 in conjunction with the delivery of the Leisure Strategy.

·       The Finance & Resources Select Committee should receive a report on the Dedicated Schools Grant deficit and the Delivering Better Value programme in 2024 year once figures have been finalized following year-end.

During discussion the following points were noted:-

·       The Dedicated schools grant was passported through schools so the Council did not have much control over this budget. The budget for special educational needs was a national issue and was so substantial that there was a statutory override by Government as a national solution was required. If all councils had to provide funding for this area all Councils would be in financial difficulties.

·       The Adult Social Care budget had the highest net expenditure. The Cabinet Member thanked Budget Scrutiny for understanding that there was no wriggle room in the budget and that portfolios were working hard to control expenditure and focus on key strategies such as the Better Lives Strategy and enablement to provide the right service at the right time.

·       Statutory inspections and changes such as the National Living Wage put additional budgetary pressures on councils.

·       The Cabinet Member for Homelessness and Regulatory was working hard to mitigate budget risks on his service area but commented that it helped to become a unitary council to address the problem on a county wide basis and work closely with other service areas.

·       The Cabinet Member for Transport confirmed that he was on target for addressing the Parking Strategy which was being discussed at Cabinet on 22 February 2024. He commented that this was now the right time for a Strategy once normal working patterns had been established post covid.

·       In terms of home to school transport the Cabinet Member for Transport reported that a report had gone to the TECC Select Committee and he was happy to provide a briefing for the Finance and Resources Select Committee in relation to the budget. The Service area was looking at widening out the use of capital to help mitigate that cost pressure and to look at alternative ways of getting to school, focusing on having the right service for the right child at the right time.

Cabinet Members welcomed the scrutiny process and the fact that it was hard to provide a balanced budget in such difficult times. A comment was also made that becoming a unitary council had helped Buckinghamshire take a holistic approach to ensuring value for money in each service area. The Leader also emphasised that there were risks with this budget, risks had been mitigated where possible but contingency budgets had been cut significantly.

A complete breakdown of the scrutiny recommendations and Cabinet’s responses can be found here.

RESOLVED –

(1)               That the Budget Scrutiny Inquiry Group, as well as the supporting Officers, be thanked for their work and subsequent recommendations.

(2)               That Cabinet’s responses to the Budget Scrutiny report 2024 and recommendations, as detailed at the meeting, be agreed.