Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 This report provides an update in relation to:

(1) Use of the recession reserve and proposed future uses

(2) The impact of the recession on the local economy, local communities and the Council and local actions.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 approve the allocation of the remaining balance within the recession reserve to offset income shortfalls resulting from the recession, and to delegate this to the S151 officer in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Resources and the Chief Executive.

2.2 note the contents of the update report (Appendix 2) and request that this be taken into account in services planning and future work of Overview & Scrutiny Panels

3 FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 The financial implications of the decision called for by this report are set out in Appendix 1, i.e. the use of the recession reserve.

3.2 There are no other direct implications of this report, but the impact of the recession is referred to the monitoring report which forms Appendix 2

3.3 The overall impact on Council finances has been relatively limited compared with other councils and the recession reserve has been sufficient to manage these. Risks of future impacts remain.

3.4 Successful work has taken place with Council commercial tenants and with other Council debtors, including in respect of Council Tax, to provide support and ensure that collection rates have been maintained

4 COMMUNITY STRATEGY OUTCOMES

4.1 The Sustainable Community Strategy has been updated and the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) has been actively involved in helping design appropriate actions to help mitigate the impact of the recession.

4.2 All of the Community Strategy outcomes are in some way be affected. The Local Area Agreement (LAA) which underpins the strategy is particularly affected in areas associated with:

5 CORPORATE PRIORITIES

5.1 The actions being taken in response to the recession impact on all corporate priorities. This was considered as part of the corporate plan refresh which was reported to Council in February 2010.

5.2 The recession does not (as reported to May Cabinet) require a change in those priorities. However, there is an impact on the sequencing of actions, target setting and detailed responses. Overview & Scrutiny Panels reviewed this last year.

6 THE REPORT

6.1 The main issue for consideration is the allocation of the recession reserve. This is set out in Appendix 1 and includes:

6.2 Since the last report good progress has been made on all the proposed actions. The impact of these is set out in Appendix 2. The actions include:

(1) Good signposting of information and advice through Council connect, new pages on the Council web site for individuals and business, and advice services though partners such as CAB and GWE Business West

(2) Initiatives to speed up housing benefits payments, to help signpost and link benefits applicants to other Council services as required and improved homeless service to avoid use of Bed & Breakfast.

(3) Promotion of the area though Bath Tourism Plus

(4) Continuing to invest in school improvements and bringing forward capital expenditure wherever possible

(5) Single Conversation with Homes & Communities Agency to encourage investment in infrastructure for housing, business and transport linked to (and in advance of) the growth requirements for the sub region

(6) Community Recession Grants as administered by Quartet

6.3 Appendix 3 sets out the initiatives funded from the Recession Reserve

7 RISK MANAGEMENT

7.1 The report author and Lead Cabinet member have fully reviewed the risk assessment related to the issue and recommendations, in compliance with the Council's decision making risk management guidance.

7.2 A risk assessment has been carried out and is reflected in:

7.3 Some of the key risks include:

7.4 In response the Council has:

8 EQUALITIES

8.1 Individual services have been advised to consider the impact of the recession when carrying out equalities impact assessments.

9 RATIONALE

9.1 See section 1.

10 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED

10.1 All of the actions in this report are optional except those already in place to ensure there is a prudent approach inherent in the Council's budgets.

11 CONSULTATION

11.1 Cabinet members; Other B&NES Services; LSP Stakeholders/Partners; Section 151 Finance Officer; Chief Executive; Monitoring Officer

12 ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN REACHING THE DECISION

12.1 Social Inclusion; Customer Focus; Sustainability; Human Resources; Property; Young People; Human Rights; Corporate; Health & Safety; Impact on Staff; Other Legal Considerations

13 ADVICE SOUGHT

13.1 The Council's Monitoring Officer (Council Solicitor) and Section 151 Officer (Strategic Director - Support Services) have had the opportunity to input to this report and have cleared it for publication.