In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 18.3, immediately after any vote is taken at a budget decision meeting of the Council the names of Councillors who cast a vote for the decision or against the decision or who abstained from voting shall be recorded in the Minutes of that meeting.
At its meeting on 5 February 2018, Cabinet considered Paper MCa/17/42. Paper MC/17/35 includes all updated information following the final Local Government Finance Settlement, together with the necessary recommendations, with the exception of one Parish precept notification which remains outstanding. Further details will be reported at the meeting.
Minutes:
127.1 Councillor Whitehead introduced the report and informed Council that it was now in a position where it had a clear vision of not only next years budget but also a clearer view of how the Council’s finances should look over the four terms of the Joint Medium Term Financial Strategy. He was pleased to report that although the Council faced a number of challenges from changing funding landscapes the Strategy responded to those challenges.
127.2 Continuing further he went on to say that Central Government continued to reduce core funding through the revenue support grant as part of its ongoing deficit reduction strategy. Going forward the Council’s core funding was now predominantly business rates and council tax income and together they covered well over 80% of the Council’s net service cost. Along with other Suffolk councils the Council had been selected to pilot the 100% business rate retention scheme. The Council anticipated receiving a one -off benefit from this of £1m however this had not been included within the figures in the report as it had been placed in an earmarked reserve where the activities from this had still to be agreed.
127.3 Councillor Whitehead informed Council that the future funding of New Homes Bonus remained uncertain. This funding stream had been a major element behind Mid Suffolk’s ability to build up such a robust level of reserves. Since it was introduced in 11/12 the Council has received £11,000,000 in new homes bonus the bulk of which has been transferred to reserves rather than rely on core funding. The graph on page 74 of the papers illustrated that the new homes bonus peaked in 2016/17 and was now in decline. The reduction in amounts given from 6 years, first to 5 and then to 4 along with an imposed 40.4% growth baseline both contribute to this fall in new homes bonus income. Since 2015/16 the Council has had to utilise a part of the new homes bonus to balance the budget. Now in the Joint Medium Term Financial Strategy the Council has looked at 3 scenarios to determine the amount of new homes bonus it receives. The first, the minimum level of new homes bonus. Secondly, one based on a 5-year average of new homes built, and thirdly one based on projected completions. Now intuitively Councillor Whitehead felt that projected completions should prove to be the most realistic assumption to use. And this reflected the Council going into a relatively modest budget deficit position in 2021/22. With earmarked reserves forecast to fall to 10,584,000 by the end of 2018 according to attachment 5 on page 144 of the report.
127.4 Commenting further Councillor Whitehead said this figure was after putting significant money aside from the transformation fund for the Regal Theatre improvement project. That was by far the major driver behind the year on year fall. He also explained to all members that the transformation fund was being renamed to the Growth and Efficiency Fund effective from 01 April 2018 as many of the Council’s transformation activities which were started from 2011 were now completed. The new name not only explained where the funding had come from i.e. growth that produced new homes bonus, additional planning income, along with many operating efficiencies that have produced out turns well ahead of those budgeted and going forward the Council can use this fund to create further growth or improved efficiencies.
127.5 Councillor Whitehead also advised Council that following a meeting with the Green Party their various suggestions were discussed with the Conservative Group and he was pleased to say that they had been incorporated into the 18/19 budget initiatives to increase the uptake of disability grants, action on stalled planning sites and the tree at birth concept as these have cross party consensus.
127.6 Councillor Whitehead also stated that the general fund budget position for 2018 had resulted in a very modest increase in council tax. For a band D property, it would increase by 81p a year which is 1.5p a week and that would equate to a 0.5% increase.
127.7 Turning to the Housing Revenue Account, Councillor Whitehead said that when he had introduced last year’s budget at full council he had said that there was no real gloss act put on the position of the HRA and the Council faced medium-term challenges. That conclusion was driven primarily by the effect of the 1% annual reduction in council house rents. The Council has since been able to update the HRA business plan to reflect the impact of increases in rent from 2021 by CPI plus 1%. This had mitigated by £9,500,000 the effect of the earlier rent reductions. However, the mandatory 1% reduction remained in place for 18/19 and was therefore included in the budget recommendations. The Council was nearing the completion of the housing stock condition survey and had built £1,100 contingency per property into the 18/19 budget. The historically subsidised sheltered service charges of £100,000 a year were unsustainable in the longer term, so the Council was proposing changes which overall would result in a net increase of £2 per week in 18/19 that being half of last year’s increase. The Council were proposing no changes to sheltered housing utility charges and were maintaining garage rents at current levels. The capital programme was set out in appendix D of the report for both general fund and HRA. as well as showing the detailed proposals year by year, it also shows how the Council intended to finance the capital programme. The paper also sets out the council tax collected on behalf of the other authorities i.e. the County, Police, and a multitude of parish councils within Mid Suffolk including the late submission from Syleham Parish of their precept that had been included in the papers.
127.8 Finally Councillor Whitehead expressed his heart felt appreciation for all the hard work of the finance team in preparing the budget.
127.9 Councillor Whybrow seconded the recommendations and reserved the right to speak.
127.10 On the proposal of Councillor Otton and seconded by Councillor Field the following amendment was tabled:-
a. Invest 50k in a feasibility study covering the introduction of a separate food waste collection aimed at processing that element of the waste stream by anaerobic digestion as the Energy from Waste Plant is close to capacity. The free capacity could then be used to deal with local commercial waste at a profit.
b. £50k to be set aside for a referendum on merger to ensure that the current Mid Suffolk opinion is polled transparently and equally to that of Babergh
c. Support the 0.5% rise in Council tax
d. Work with SCC to use police/firestations for emergency homeless provision
e. Introduce a radical approach for getting disabled grants dealt with, using £40k that is currently unspent to do so.
f. Re-instate £30k for supported living. It is not reasonable to introduce a £2 per week increase in costs for the residents of supported housing while keeping the rise to council tax payers to £0.015per week.
g. Reduce the £200K rent loss on council homes by £100k by targeting delays in the assessment, authorisation, materials procurement and scheduling of work processes possibly using a local contractor to deal with any backlog.
h. Make a robust approach to Government to ensure that Mid Suffolk benefits from the lifting of the Cap on HRA borrowing.
i. Take advantage of the raised cap to Increase borrowing by £20milion to deliver 200 new affordable homes using the Transformation Fund to fund interest until building is complete and rent revenue increases.
j. Investigate the possibility of MSDSC setting up a Community Land Trust to build more social and affordable homes thus avoiding right to buy
k. Re-establish the income stream from building control by setting up a stand-alone company to provide this service operating from premises nearer to its clients.
127.11 Councillor Otton presented the Motion to Council and told members that the reasons for the amendment was that their Group felt that waste was an important area and many other councils had a food waste recycling scheme and they believed that Mid Suffolk and Suffolk should do the same, she went on to say that £50k should also be set aside for a referendum for the residents of Mid Suffolk to have the opportunity to vote on the proposed merger with Babergh Council as it seem illogical and undemocratic if Babergh were given the chance to have their say but Mid Suffolk residents were not. Commenting further she said that this was an important decision which must not be left to officers and a few Council leaders to make.
127.12 Councillor Otton stated that her Group were prepared to support the 0.5% increase in Council tax and she asked the Council to support her request to investigate the possibility of using manned fire stations as emergency provision for rough sleepers when the temperatures dropped below zero, she had spoken with the Chief Fire officer and was investigating the scheme in Nottingham.
127.13 Commenting further Councillor Otton raised the issue of disabled facilities grants and the long waiting list many of them awaiting discharge from hospital therefore exacerbating the problem of bed blocking. She therefore proposed to use the £40k that was not spent to do this.
127.14 She went on to say that she could not support the introduction of a £2 a week increase for those people in sheltered housing when the rise to council tax payers of all incomes equated to just 15p per week. She also recommended that the loss of income from voids should be reduced by targeting and scheduling work and using local contractors to clear the backlog. Councillor Otton also requested that the Council lobby the government to raise the cap on housing borrowing then the Council could use its healthy transformation fund to fund this borrowing and also investigate the possibility of the council setting up a community land trust to build more homes to replace the void from right to buy.
127.15 Councillor Field spoke about the concept of a separate food waste collection service saying that the County may no longer wish to block such an initiative as it now has its EFW plant operational, the cost aspect of this with the need to provide waste freighters which had additional compartments in which food could be collected was not as concerning as previously. Councillor Field went on to say if technology such as an anaerobic digestion the Council could generate methane for commercial use the residue to improve soil fertility, avoid the incinerator gate fee and free up capacity at the EFW to sell to local companies so although clearly there would be a cost associated with this, there would also be benefits.
127.16 Councillor Fleming spoke as a Green County Board member representative and said that generally speaking trying to recycle food waste from households did not provide enough benefit to the environment and he would rather focus on reducing the amount of food waste that was generated.
127.17 Councillor Hicks added that unfortunately food waste collection only really worked in real urban areas where you could collect a lot in a very short space of time, the cost of separating the waste was just too prohibitive and would be more environmentally more damaging because you would need a whole new fleet of vehicles travelling around Suffolk.
127.18 Councillor Passmore commented on the proposal to use fire stations as emergency provision for rough sleepers stating that there was a lot of provision already available for the homelessness in Ipswich. He also saw problems around using the fire stations due to security, sensitive information, who would supervise them and how would the facilities be available 247 and felt that the suggestion was impractical.
127.19 Councillor Barker said that he could not support the proposal for food waste and felt that money should be spent on changing people’s behaviour on buying food and not using food past it sell by date.
127.20 Councillor Matthiessen stated that he was in support of the amendment especially the proposal to set aside money for a referendum, lobbying the Government to lift the cap on housing borrowing and the proposal to set up a community land trust.
127.21 Councillor Norris also stated that he supported the proposal to put aside £50k for a referendum for Mid Suffolk.
127.22 Councillor Whybrow felt that the amendment had been brought forward at the eleventh hour and suggested that earlier discussion and engagement would have yielded better outcomes.
127.23 Councillor Whitehead thanked Councillor Otton for her support of the proposed council tax rise. Commenting further he could not support the request for a referendum as he felt that the Comres results would illustrate that there was not a strong case for a referendum. With regard to the disabled facilities grant he felt that an increase in staffing was the Chief Executive’s prerogative, so rather than being specific the Administration had requested that they would like to see better spending of the disabled grants and take whatever steps were needed to improve the process. Commenting further he went on to say with regard to the £2 increase in sheltered housing fees between 60% and 70% of the people affected are on housing benefit and therefore personally won’t be paying this. In terms of the voids Councillor Whitehead stated that the Administration were very keen to see these voids reduced and there was a current ongoing project to get these reduced.
127.24 Councillor Otton in her response said that she had forwarded her proposals to Councillor Gowrley and Councillor Whitehead several weeks ago and had no response. With regards to the use of fire stations for rough sleepers this was a model that had been introduced in other places such as Manchester and Nottingham and was working extremely well with the help of the Red Cross. As for the increase of £2 for those in sheltered accommodation because they are on benefits, this is a major issue as the government policy was to reduce benefits, she hoped the Council would continue to lobby the government to lift the cap on the HRA borrowing and felt very disappointed that Suffolk would not be following other counties across the country to recycle food waste. She thanked members who had supported the amendment.
127.25 The amendment was PUT to the meeting and LOST.
127.26 In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 18.3 the vote was recorded as follows:-.
Against |
Abstention |
|
Cllr Eburne |
Cllr Barker |
|
Cllr Field |
Cllr Brewster |
|
Cllr Killett |
Cllr Burke |
|
Cllr Marchant |
Cllr Burn |
|
Cllr Matthissen |
Cllr Caston |
|
Cllr Norris |
Cllr Ekpenyong |
|
Cllr Otton |
Cllr Flatman |
|
Cllr Stringer |
Cllr Fleming |
|
Cllr Welham |
Cllr Guthrie |
|
|
Cllr Hadingham |
|
|
Cllr Haley |
|
|
Cllr Hicks |
|
|
Cllr Horn |
|
|
Cllr Kearsley |
|
|
Cllr Levantis |
|
|
Cllr Mayes |
|
|
Cllr Morley |
|
|
Cllr Muller |
|
|
Cllr Osborne |
|
|
Cllr Passmore |
|
|
Cllr Storey |
|
|
Cllr Welsby |
|
|
Cllr Whitehead |
|
|
Cllr Whybrow |
|
|
|
|
Total 9 |
Total 24 |
0 |
127.27 The Chairman announced that the Motion was lost and returned to debate the substantive motion.
127.28 Councillor Matthiessen asked if there was a response regarding the lobbying of the MH DCLG with regards to lifting the HRA cap?
127.29 Councillor Eburne asked if the Council was confident that BMBS would break even in the timescale predicted and sought clarification on what projected completions actually meant with regards to the five- year land supply?
127.30 In response Councillor Whitehead stated that the Business Case was based on three scenarios:- the worst, best and middle case and the budget and performance was kept under constant review. The Assistant Director for Housing added that Overview and Scrutiny would be reviewing the service in April and a revised business plan and financial forecast would be going to Cabinet in April or May. A lot of work had been done in revising the business plan where originally the forecast had predicted a surplus within year 5 of the scheme, however this was looking increasingly likely that a surplus would not be seen until year 6 but Obviously this would be greatly scrutinised in the forthcoming weeks and months.
127.31 In response to the questions relating to projected completions Councillor Whitehead stated that he would need to go back to the Strategic Planning team to gain an exact definition of what numbers and assumptions they have used.
127.32 Councillor Eburne asked if it would be possible to have the figures on which the graph was based?
127.33 Councillor Whitehead in response stated that he would be happy to provide the figures and would be very disappointed if those figures couldn’t be robustly supported.
127.34 Councillor
Stringer stated that for the first time in his Groups history they
had not produced an alternative budget however they had welcomed
the opportunity to sit down with the Administration and go through
some of the reasoning behind the budget decisions, it was for this
reason on balance that his Group would be voting for the
recommendations purely because he felt that the Administration had
listened .
Councillor Stringer welcomed the opportunity to sit down with the Administration and look at past alternative Green Group submissions and it was for this reason on balance that he would be voting for the recommendations in the report.
127.35 Councillor Whitehead in his summing up thanked Councillor Stringer for his comments he also went on to stay that in terms of the budget the recommendations would be taken as a whole and a recorded vote would be undertaken.
127.36 The recommendations were PUT to the meeting and CARRIED.
127.37 In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 18.3 the vote was recorded as follows:-.
For |
Against |
Abstention |
Cllr Barker |
Cllr Field |
Cllr Matthissen |
Cllr Brewster |
Cllr Marchant |
|
Cllr Burke |
Cllr Norris |
|
Cllr Burn |
Cllr Otton |
|
Cllr Caston |
|
|
Cllr Eburne |
|
|
Cllr Ekpenyong |
|
|
Cllr Flatman |
|
|
Cllr Fleming |
|
|
Cllr Guthrie |
|
|
Cllr Hadingham |
|
|
Cllr Haley |
|
|
Cllr Hicks |
|
|
Cllr Horn |
|
|
Cllr Kearsley |
|
|
Cllr Killett |
|
|
Cllr Levantis |
|
|
Cllr Mayes |
|
|
Cllr Morley |
|
|
Cllr Muller |
|
|
Cllr Osborne |
|
|
Cllr Passmore |
|
|
Cllr Storey |
|
|
Cllr Stringer |
|
|
Cllr Welham |
|
|
Cllr Welsby |
|
|
Cllr Whitehead |
|
|
Cllr Whybrow |
|
|
|
|
|
Total 28 |
Total 4 |
1 |
It was Resolved:-
(i) That the Joint Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) and Budget proposals set out in the report be approved.
(ii) That the final General Fund Budget for 2018/19 be based on a council tax increase of 0.5%, an increase of 81p per annum for a Band D property to support the Council’s overall financial position be approved.
(iii) That the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Investment Strategy 2018/19 to 2022/23 and HRA Budget for 2018/19 be agreed.
(iv) That the mandatory decrease of 1% in Council House rents, equivalent to an average rent reduction of £0.83 a week, as required by the Welfare Reform and Work Act be implemented.
(v) That the Sheltered Housing Supported people cost of £3 per week be removed and Service charges be increased by £5 per week for each scheme (set at £4 cap per week last year) meaning a net increase of £2 per week to tenants. This will reduce the subsidy by £30k.
(vi) That Sheltered Housing utility charges are kept at the same level.
(vii) That in principle, Right to Buy receipts should be retained to enable continued development and acquisition of new council dwellings.
(viii) That garage rents are kept at the same level.
(ix) That the revised HRA Business Plan in Appendix E of the report be noted.
(x) That the Capital Programme in Appendix D of the report be agreed.
(xi) That the offer to participate for Mid Suffolk in the Business Rate Pilot for 2018/19 as set out in paragraph 11.9 to 11.10 of the report be accepted.
Supporting documents: