Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Resources, Councillor Mark Elliott, introduced the report.

Panel members raised the following points and asked the following questions:

Councillor Hounsell stated that there had been speculation that the government might allow councils to levy a council tax above the current cap of 4.99% without a referendum. He asked if the Cabinet Member could give an indication of what raising the council tax beyond the cap would do to alleviate our deficit.

The Cabinet Member explained that every 1% on council tax is about £1.4 million extra revenue.

Councillor Moss stated that there have been rumours that the top bandings of council tax may well be extended. Has there been any modelling on how many houses in Bath and North East Somerset we have that are at the top band and what that could possibly mean? The Cabinet Member stated that he is not aware of any modelling as there is no detail as to what that might be yet. There are also concerns that if central government go ahead with this, they might not allow Councils to keep the money.

Councillor Simon stated that there is going to be a body to look at pay in the social care sector and set national rates for social care. Have we factored that in when looking at adult social care costs? The officer stated that he is not aware of any specific modelling for that around adult social care funding and believes that it may not kick in until April 2028.

Councillor Hughes asked that, other than the Fair Funding which obviously adds an element of uncertainty, where are the main areas that are causing that?

The Cabinet Member explained that the uncertainty part comes mainly from the fair funding issue because we don’t know what income we’re going to get. There is always uncertainty in predicting demand in children’s and adult’s services particularly in children’s as a very small change in the number of children in care can be another million pounds on the budget if they’re very high need.

Councillor Hughes asked if the assessment of £13 million on fair funding over three years could be wildly out? The Cabinet Member stated that he did not think it’ll be wildly out and that we should know by the end of the week once we’ve worked through all of the modelling. We won’t know for definite until the middle of December when we actually get a number from the government.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member and officers