(i)

£4m of in-year reductions had been assessed as necessary as a result of Government action, this was in addition to the £6m already identified as being required from within Children’s Services and Adult Social Care;

(ii)

if nothing was done to address the budget difficulties the Council would have a deficit of £30m by 2013;

(iii)

the Comprehensive Spending Review due in October was also expected to have a significant impact upon the Council’s finances;

(iv)

the current economic climate already highlighted Plymouth as the 13^th hardest hit City in the country and this position could significantly worsen should the Dockyard incur deep cuts or closure;

(v)

though facing troubling times, the Council was in a good starting position, a fact which had been highlighted through receipt of the Municipal Journal’s ‘Best Achieving Council of the Year’ Award 2010;

(vi)

City and Council priorities were being reduced from 14 to four and, whilst they would continue to form the basis of performance management arrangements for the Council, they would also play a more significant role in resource allocation and represent a tighter focus for the improvement agenda in times of diminishing revenue and capital resources;

(vii)

there was already movement in the City towards integrated planning and service provision with health and police partners, this work would continue through the evolvement of the Plymouth Report, a document which had been produced on which the Council and partner agencies could base service planning;

(viii)

future challenges ahead in respect of partnership working included –

• establishment of Local Economic Partnerships
• replacement of health and adult social care overview and scrutiny functions with Health and Wellbeing Boards
• directly elected police commissioners
• greater autonomy for schools
• services provided by the Council were democratically driven whilst partner services were not

(ix)

whilst the immediate focus remained on trying to address in-year pressures, the Council was also looking ahead to how it would deal with changing legislation, one example being the return of responsibility for public health to local authorities.  Given the financial pressures faced by the health service and Derriford in particular, the Council would have many tough decisions to take and political maturity would be required; 

(x)

a date for announcing the outcome of the Government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review was not yet known but it was anticipated that it would be on or around 20 October, the same as the Treasury’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).  The Leader had written to the Ministry of Defence to apply pressure on the City’s behalf and a response to this letter was awaited;

(xi)

the Council had been accurate with its estimates in regard to previous Comprehensive Spending Reviews, however, this year was unchartered territory as running alongside the CSR was the Strategic Defence and Security Review.  Whereas the NHS budget had a certain element of protection, any cuts to the defence budget would hit the City harder due to Plymouth’s links to the Navy and Devonport Dockyard;

(xii)

the City was still open for business and projects such as the Life Centre and opening up of Millbay were progressing well, with £1.5m of reserves committed to the first phase of development alone.  Other projects, however, such as the Eastern Corridor and Sherford could be affected;

(xiii)

it would take time to assess the impact of the CSR once the announcement had been made.  At the first round of budget cuts in June it was initially thought that £1.8m had to be found, however, when this was unpicked it soon became clear that the Council was needing to identify savings of £4m plus;

(xiv)

a briefing paper would be circulated to members highlighting the impact of the CSR at the earliest opportunity and further discussion on the effects for the City would take place at the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board on 24 November, 2010.