Issue - meetings

That the Housing and Communities portfolio’s options to reduce budgets be noted.

            The Strategic Finance Manager presented a report to provide details of additional proposals for the Housing and Communities portfolio.

            Following receipt of the disappointing Local Government Provisional Settlement, all portfolios had been tasked with reviewing their cost base to identify potential ways of reducing budgets or removing cost pressure to contribute more to meeting the remaining gap.  Comments from Overview & Scrutiny committees on their respective areas would be collated for the final budget-setting reports to Cabinet and County Council on 20 February.

            The Chief Officer (Housing & Communities) presented the proposed budget reductions for the Housing and Communities Portfolio, as outlined within the report and the committee was invited to review and comment on the Portfolio’s options to reduce budgets.

            Councillor Geoff Collett asked it was sensible to take money from reserves when Officers and Members know that next year’s budget would be substantially worse and asked whether the proposals were not making things worse for the future.  The Strategic Finance Manager said that options to address the issue of homelessness had been approved and it was being suggested that an amount of reserves be ringfenced to give time for some of those options to come to fruition and address the issue.  This would be more of a concern if no solutions were in place.

            The Chair asked how confident Officers were that the solutions identified to address homelessness would work.  The Chief Officer (Housing and Communities) said that some of the options previously considered by the Committee could be costed, for example, the refurbishment of properties for house share and she was confident that options would have an impact, but demand continued to increase.  The Housing & Prevention Service Manager advised that projections had been developed but that a lot of homeless presentations were people who were homeless on the day.  All that could be done as a crisis management service was to respond to what happens day to day. 

The recommendation, as outlined within the report, was moved by Councillor Dennis Hutchinson and seconded by Councillor Rosetta Dolphin.

RESOLVED:

That the Housing and Communities portfolio’s options to reduce budgets be noted.