Agenda item

A report from the Cabinet Member for Finance and Housing is attached.

Appendix A attached

Appendix B attached

Appendix C attached

Councillor O’Brien, Cabinet Member, Finance and Housing and Steve Kenyon, Interim Executive Director of Resources and Regulation presented a report informing Members of the Council’s financial position for the period April 2017 to September 2017.

Members of the Committee were asked for comments and questions;

·         Councillor Smith stated that the overspend hadn’t reduced much from the last report received and asked how accurate the financial forecasts were.

Steve explained that the forecasts were made up of actual spend plus committed spend. At the start of the process activity and demand is considered and then new information is added as the year goes on. The forecast also needed to include changes in demand and unknown pressures that may arise.

·         Councillor Harris referred to the Better Care Fund and other grants and asked whether the Council was doing as much as possible to utilise the funds available to it.

It was explained that were two different types of grants. The Better Care Fund is one that is received automatically and then there are other ones such as ‘I Will if You Will’ that involve bidding for.

There isn’t a dedicated officer to bid for the grants but every service is encouraged and do look for a bid for grants specific to their service.

·         Councillor FitzGerald referred to the new national funding formula and the fact that schools were currently deciding which option to pick in relation to this. Councillor FitzGerald asked what would happen to the overspend in schools and the requirement that they pay it back. Councillor FitzGerald also referred to the 8 options for schools to choose from and whether schools were being advised on which option would be the most suitable for them.

It was explained that this was something that the Council was aware of and work was being done to address the issue.

·         Councillor Hankey stated that the deficit usually reduces as the year goes on but the decrease is less this year and asked whether the Council was confident that it will reduce more.

Steve explained that he was confident that work was being done across the Council to address budget issues but there were always the unknowns that you couldn’t anticipate.

·         Councillor Hankey referred to service redesigns that were being carried out and asked whether there was enough time for these to be completed.

It was explained that the service redesigns had been scheduled to take place over 3 years but will deliver at different times.

·         Councillor Hankey asked whether the Council could afford to keep services such as the civic halls open until the reviews were completed. There had been a number of civic hall reviews and nothing had changed. Should this be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

Councillor O’Brien explained that the Star Chambers looked at all different aspects of services including how to increase capacity.

·         Councillor Wright referred to the delays in achieving savings that were set out in the report and stated that there seemed to be a lot of delays highlighted.

It was explained that the service redesigns needed to be right so could take longer than initially planned or be changed. There was more analysis of budgets than ever before.

·         Councillor Smith referred to staff vacancies and the fact that less staff meant that less work done be done on achieving the aims set out in the action plans.

·         Councillor Smith asked that the Treasury Management Team be thanked for their hard work and achievements over the past year.

·         Councillor Smith referred to the 10 point saving strategy and stated that the savings would get to a point where they would reach the maximum they could. Councillor Smith asked how close the Council was to not being able to provide services.

Steve Kenyon explained that Bury Council was in no worse situation than any other council but the test was to look at where to prioritise the money.

Councillor O’Brien explained that it was also necessary to inform the public and partners where the priorities were and what they should expect.

·         Councillor Hankey referred to the Council’s portfolio of investments and the properties had been invested in and the shortfall that was being recorded in relation to this and he asked what the reason behind this was.

Steve explained that the Council had 4 properties that were purely for investment and there was a good yield being received from these. The Council also had operational properties across the borough that weren’t achieving their full potential.

·         Councillor Hankey asked for further information in relation to the investment properties.

Steve stated that he would provide this information to Councillor Hankey.

·         Councillor Caserta referred to the shortfall in relation to the adolescent support unit and asked how this issue was progressing.

Steve stated that he would request more information on this issue from Children’s Services.

·         Councillor Caserta stated that a company had met with parents of children requiring home to school transport and discussed the use of mobility budgets to fund this service. Councillor Caserta asked how this issue was progressing.

Councillor O’Brien explained that there had been a change in the way that the service was delivered but the issue wasn’t about money, it was about the number requiring the service.

·         Councillor Caserta referred to business rate retention and asked what measures were in place to attract new business to the borough.

It was explained that work was being done in relation to Treasury Management, investments including the Manchester Airport Group, Increasing the number of businesses, access to sites, skill improvement, regeneration of brownfield sites and regeneration of other town centres across the borough.

·         Councillor Caserta reported that Rochdale Council had a link to a dedicated website offering businesses incentives, the website and asked what Bury Council were doing.

Councillor O’Brien explained that Bury offered the same business friendly policies and incentives as Rochdale and he would ask that the information available on the Council website was reviewed to ensure that it was as informative and attractive as possible.

·         Councillor FitzGerald referred to the projected £3.5m overspend and stated that if this stayed the same it could add up to a £12m overspend once everything was added up. Councillor FitzGerald asked if it would be possible to see how this bridge was to be gapped in relation to transformation money, business rates etc.

Steve stated that he would provide this information to Councillor FitzGerald.

It was agreed:

That the contents of the report be noted.