Issue - meetings

(a)          That the Council approves a balanced budget for 2016/17 based on a combination of the previously adopted Stage One proposals, and the new Stage Two proposals of £3.517M as set out within Table 1 of the Cabinet report; and

(b)          That Council calls on Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to allocate a proportion of the additional Intermediate Care Fund monies granted by Welsh Government to assist the Council, in its capacity as a commissioner of care, in meeting the increasing provider costs within the local residential, nursing and specialist provider independent care sector to both sustain the provider market and protect the secondary and acute health sector from increased demand.

The Chief Executive introduced a report to provide Members with the recommendations of the Cabinet for the Council Fund Revenue Budget 2016/17.

The presentation to be provided to Members at this meeting would focus on the process of closing the budget gap and Cabinet had agreed a two part recommendation to this meeting and copies of this had been circulated to Members.  The Chief Executive advised that the Corporate Finance Manager would briefly comment on the risk assessment of the proposals and provide Members with his statutory opinion as Section 151 Officer, which would override any other opinions, and the Chief Executive asked that the opinion be respected. 

The Corporate Finance Manager and the Finance Manager – Corporate Accounting and Systems provided a detailed presentation, and commented on the following areas:-

·         Content

·         Cabinet Recommendations

·         Budget Stages

·         Budget Stage 1

·         Summary of Revised Gap: Stage One Phase 1

·         Summary of Revised: Stage One Phase 1

·         Budget Stage 2

·         Final Work to Balance the Budget

·         Additional Service Issues

·         Review of New and Emergent Pressures

·         Workforce Efficiencies

·         Council Tax

·         Use of Reserves

·         Other adjustments

·         Summary of Final Balanced Position

·         Risk Summary for In-year management

·         Professional Opinions

·         Looking Ahead

·         Final settlement

·         Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP)

At the close of the presentation the Chief Executive referred to the unquantifiable risk of the level of support that would need to be given to commissioned care providers as a consequence of their inflationary costs. This was recognised in the second recommendation from Cabinet to secure extra funding from Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) from the Intermediate Care Fund (ICF) for this purpose.  He confirmed that the Final Settlement had not yet been received and that the budget assumptions and the advice given by the Corporate Finance Manager and Finance Manager – Corporate Accounting and Systems was based on the settlement not changing materially from the Provisional Settlement.  The final details would not be received until early March 2016 but a macro Welsh budget had been recommended by Welsh Government and an updated draft had been provided which reflected only a slight change to the settlement for Flintshire and therefore the recommended budget from Cabinet should be unaffected.  The current Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) would end in 2017/18 and any budget pressures which were being financed from the Council Reserves would need to be settled within the base from 2017/18.  Figures for 2017/18 were based on a notional reduction in Revenue Support Grant of 1.5% and an increase in Council Tax of 3% along with the reserves being repaid from 2016/17 prior to new pressures and efficiencies.  Based on these figures the Council was still facing a gap of around £11m for 2017/18.  In referring to the Local Government Bill which had been discussed at the previous meeting of Council the Chief Executive explained that the next MTFS would cover to the period 2018/19.  If the Bill was enacted, then 2019 would be the year of Shadow Authorities; therefore planning up to that point was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 90