Agenda item

The Medium Term Financial Strategy outlines the financial context and challenges for the Council over the next five years and sets out a strategy that will be used to inform its annual budget process.

Councillor Richard Samuel made an ad-hoc statement saying that over the last 3 years there were further cuts central Government funding to Local Government.  Overall, there was £16bn of cuts to Local Governments across the country, and those cuts have had significant negative impact on Local Authorities such as Bath and North East Somerset.  There were no real solutions on how this problem would be resolved yet there were more cuts to arts services, waste services, youth services, public services, etc.  Councillor Samuel concluded his statement by expressing concern on further unprecedented cuts to the Council.

Councillor Joe Rayment made an ad-hoc statement where he held responsible central Government administrations for the cuts over the last 8 years.  Councillor Rayment also said that the austerity was not over, despite what the Chancellor has said in his speech, and further cuts would cause reduction in more services provided by the Council.  Councillor Rayment concluded his statement by saying that he saw proposals by the Council to lobby the central Government to get funding from other places, though this would not be enough to help the current and future situation.

Councillor Paul Crossley made an ad-hoc statement where he said that cuts in funding to Local Government were performed over decades and not just over the last 8 years.

Councillor Charles Gerrish introduced the report by saying that Local Government had suffered cuts in funding from different administrations.  This strategy spans five years although there was only certainty of the level of Government funding for next year at present. The recent consultation paper has outlined that several funding streams were to be reviewed for 2020/21; these included Fairer Funding, Business Rate Retention, New Homes Bonus, and Better Care Funding and these changes would pose a significant financial risk for B&NES in 2020/21.  Despite the uncertainty the Council would still need to plan its finances for the medium to longer term and therefore the Strategy was based on best estimates at this stage. The Council has had a good track record in savings delivery with £55.4m delivered between 2013/14 to 2017/18 and, a further £17m expected in this financial year – a total of £72.4m over six years.  These estimates showed that the Council would need to find a further £50.3m in savings over the next five years.  In essence the Council would need to reduce net spend by approximately 44.5% (15.2% of gross spend) over the next five years.  The current plans identified, delivered, and would continue to deliver,a high number of efficiency savings and therefore the scope for delivering further large savings from efficiencies was limited. 

Councillor Charles Gerrish moved the recommendations.

Councillor Tim Warren seconded the motion by saying that the Council were in difficult times with a huge pressure on the budget.  The Council did not choose to make these cuts, but something had to be done. Councillor Warren also said that if the cuts were not made in services such as Arts Department or similar then other services would suffer.

Councillor Paul May said that we have to live with allocated resources.  Councillor May highlighted that children services were under significant pressure and for that reason the Council would need to get the best from assets that we have.

Councillor Vic Pritchard reminded the Cabinet that 80% of Council’s budget was for children and adult social care.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that the Cabinet agreed to approve the Medium Term Financial Strategy.