Issue - meetings

To provide the Committee with the current financial forecast position for 2018/19 and consult on the Stage 1 Council Fund Revenue budget proposals for 2018/19.

That the Committee notes the Stage One budget proposals and financial pressures, and the proposed savings as follows:

·         Records Management - reduction in the amount of records in storage -£0.010m.

·         Customer Services - new service models to deliver customer access through digital would return an efficiency of £0.050m.

·         Flintshire Connects - options to change the delivery of the Connects service could deliver a range of savings between £0.056m and £0.112m depending on the option chosen.

·         Registration Services - additional income from charging for declaration of births would deliver an additional £0.012m.

The Chief Executive introduced the report setting out the current financial forecast position for 2018/19 to seek views on Stage 1 of the Council Fund revenue budget proposals.  Budget options for each service portfolio had been considered by the respective Overview & Scrutiny Committees, noting that the Welsh Government (WG) announcement of the Provisional Local Government Settlement was a key variable in the financial forecast.

A briefing note by officers on the outcome of the Settlement announcement was shared, together with information issued by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA).

Discussions during the budget process had generated widespread concerns about the impact of further reductions on service resilience, as indicated by risk assessment levels.  Budget efficiency options totalling around £3m had raised no objections, with the exception of a £35K efficiency for the Music Service for a new service model which was still under development.

The Chief Officer (Governance) gave a summary of the efficiencies achieved in his portfolio, noting that some elements of the budget were outside the control of the Council.  The vast majority of planned efficiencies had already been delivered which meant that further savings posed a risk to operating levels.  The benchmarking information demonstrated that services were operating at either the same or below average cost of peer authorities.

The Senior Manager, Human Resources & Organisational Development advised that efficiencies in her portfolio were mainly a result of major restructuring which left the service operating at optimal level.  There was a risk that further efficiencies would affect the ability of the service to meet the needs of a large-scale workforce.

The Finance Manager, Corporate Accounting & Systems reported that having achieved most of the planned efficiencies through structural changes and new software, work was ongoing to deliver the remaining £200K.  Demand on the service was high, particularly in view of the changing financial position of the Council.

The Finance Manager, Community Services provided an overview of efficiencies delivered in Customer Services, Revenues & Benefits and Welfare Rights, mainly generated through the Flintshire Connects service.  She spoke about the development of digital services for customer access and improvement in the Registration Service which was performing well against national key performance indicators.

Officers were undertaking detailed analysis of the outcome of the settlement and were awaiting information on specific grants.  Following the initial forecast position of a £11.7m projected gap, the reduction of 0.9% in funding would increase the budget gap by £1.9m including new responsibilities for homelessness duties as an additional pressure.  It was also predicted that a further pressure on national non-domestic rates (NNDR) was likely to have a net impact of £64K.  On the summary of inflation, the projected increase in gas charges was being reviewed, following a challenge.  The only new efficiency for Corporate Services was £0.010m in Records Management.

Councillor Richard Jones asked whether the benefits of the Council collecting NNDR was outweighed by the resources required to do this.  The Chief Executive explained that the performance of individual councils on collection targets affected the redistribution of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 30