Issue - meetings

Report CSD23033

Before the start of this item Councillor Nicholas Bennett declared an interest as a member of the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority.

It was moved by Councillor Nicholas Bennett and seconded by Cllr Colin Smith that Council Procedure Rules be varied at this meeting to allow for one debate on each report covering the original motion, any amendments and where necessary the substantive motion. This was accepted by the Members present. 

The Director of Finance reported that there were no changes to the final Mayoral precept accepted by the London Assembly on 23^th February 2023.

Since the last meeting of the Executive, there had been further changes on levies and the final position was shown in recommendation 2.1 (e) below.

Members were requested to note that the 2023/24 budget included the impact of the recommended 2023/24 pay award, the supplementary 2022/23 award to meet inflationary pressures and the proposed increase for merited rewards that was reported to Executive on 18^th January 2023 and was subject to full Council approval (agenda item 10).

It was important to note that the 2023/24 Central Contingency sum included costs not yet allocated to Portfolio budgets at this stage.  Therefore, there would be further changes to the Central Contingency to reflect allocations to individual Portfolio budgets prior to publication of the Financial Control Budget.

The above changes would require the following proposed amendments to be made to the recommendations of the Executive:

“Amended Recommendation (2.1)

(b)  Approves the draft revenue budgets (as in Appendix 2) for 2023/24 to include the following updated changes in (d) and (e):

(d)  Approves a revised Central Contingency sum of £17,560k to reflect the

  changes in (e);

(e)  Approves the following provisions for levies for inclusion in the budget for 2023/24:

(f)  Notes the final position on the GLA precept, as accepted by the London Assembly on 23^rd February 2023;

(g)  Sets a 4.99% increase in Bromley’s council tax for 2023/24 compared with 2022/23 (2.99% general increase plus 2% Adult Social Care Precept) and a 9.7% increase in the GLA precept.

Amended Recommendation (2.2)

Council Tax 2023/24 – Statutory Calculations and Resolutions (as amended by the Localism Act 2011).

Subject to 2.1 (a) to (k) above, if the formal Council Tax Resolution as detailed

below is approved, the total Band D Council Tax will be as follows:

(#)  in line with the 2022/23 Council Tax Referendum Principles, the % increase applied is based on an authority’s “relevant basic amount of Council Tax” (£1,341.13 for Bromley) – see paragraph 6 below. 

Amended Recommendation (2.3):

(3)  That the following amounts be calculated for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 68

Report FSD23012

A key part of the financial strategy was to highlight the budget issues that would need to be addressed by the Council over the coming financial years, by forecasting the level of available resources from all sources and budget pressures relating to revenue spending. Details of the capital programme and the funding strategy were reported to the previous meeting of the Executive.

The Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement 2023/24, which covered 2023/24 only with limited indication of funding for 2025/26, provided the fourth year (following 10 years of austerity) of real increases in funding. The settlement included continuation of the ASC precept, repurposed social care funding, additional adult social care funding and other changes.

Although the settlement was to be welcomed there remained uncertainty around the level of Government funding for 2024/25 and beyond, particularly as the Government would need to address the significant increase in public debt due to the pandemic. The longer-term Spending Review together with the awaited Fair Funding Review and Devolution of Business Rates (or any revised funding proposals) was not expected until 2026/27.

The report identified the final issues affecting the 2023/24 revenue budget and sought recommendations to the Council on the level of the Bromley element of the 2023/24 Council Tax and Adult Social Care precept. Confirmation of the final GLA precept would be reported to the Council meeting on 27^th February 2023. The report also sought final approval of the ‘schools budget’. The approach reflected in this report was for the Council to not only achieve a legal and financially balanced budget in 2023/24 but to have measures in place to deal with the medium-term financial position (2024/25 to 2026/27).

With the Government reductions in funding since austerity measures began, although there have been some recent improvements in funding, the burden of financing increasing service demands falls primarily on the level of council tax and share of business rate income. The financial forecast assumed that the level of core grant funding would remain unchanged, in real terms, from 2025/26.

The report had been scrutinised by the Executive, Resources and Contracts PDS Committee at its meeting on 2 February 2023 and the Committee had supported the recommendations.

RESOLVED: That

2.1 Council be recommended to:

a)  Note the Final Local Government Settlement 2023/24, announced by DLUHC on 6^th February, which included additional Services Grant funding of £61.5k and that these monies be set aside within the 2023/24 Central Contingency.

b)  Approve the schools budget of £98.674m which matches the estimated level of Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) after academy recoupment;

c)  Approve the draft revenue budgets (as detailed in the revised Appendix 2) for 2023/24

d)  Agree that Chief Officers identify alternative savings/mitigation within their departmental budgets where it is not possible to realise any savings/mitigation reported to the previous meeting of the Executive held on 18^th January 2023;

e)  Approve a revised Central Contingency sum to reflect the allocation of the pay award, movement of levies  ...  view the full minutes text for item 143