The Leader welcomed Councillor Mrs Aspinall, Chair of the Budget Scrutiny Select Committee to the meeting.  Councillor Mrs Aspinall thanked Councillor Darcy and Officers for engaging with scrutiny over the last year and reported that the committee would be pleased that most of the recommendations had been agreed by the Cabinet.  It was highlighted that the first time for many years that the committee had not made recommendations specific to social care and as discussed at length at the last council meeting, the crisis within the Health and Social Care sector cannot be solved in isolation.

With regard to the recommendation rejected by Cabinet in relation to the use of bailiffs for the collection of Council Tax, would ask that you consider carefully how bailiffs were used and the temptation to turn quickly to bailiff action would risk pushing people into problem debt.

The use of Section 106 funding to support the revenue budget was subject of debate amongst members of the committee but we came to a cross party agreement.  Some members of the committee were concerned that the use of this money would result in additional borrowing costs and if being used to support discretionary services, which in the long term were unsustainable, this should be reconsidered.

Councillor Mrs Aspinall highlighted that the information provided to the committee was consistent and provided an indication of the challenges that were faced across the departments and looked forward from April to be able to scrutinise the Business Plans of individual Service Directors.  This would enable Councillors to have a clear view of the services and would help us to provide recommendations to future administrations as a critical friend.

The Leader thanked the Chair and the Committee involved in the scrutiny of the budget.

The Leader introduced the Delivering a Balanced Budget 2018/19 report and asked Andrew Hardingham, Interim Joint Strategic Director for Transformation and Change to provide a response to the Budget Scrutiny Select Committee over the misunderstanding of the proposal to use Section 106 money and the perception that this was being used to support the revenue budget.  Andrew Hardingham gave a comprehensive response which included that the local authority does not have any power in other words it is ‘ultra vires’ to borrow to fund revenue services.  Those services were essentially funded through council tax, revenue support grant, other grants and the raising of fees and charges of services provided by the local authority.   This council was not proposing to borrow to fund the services we provide to citizens within the city.

The Leader noted that proposals for use of the Neighbourhood Initiative Fund in 2018/19 would be brought forward later in the year, following a full evaluation of the current Winter Works pilot initiative which made use of the fund during 2017/18.

Following questions and a debate, it was agreed that –

1.         Cabinet recommends the 2018/19 Budget to Council.

2.         Cabinet recommends the 2018/19 Flexible Use of Capital Receipts Strategy to Council.

3.         Cabinet recommends the Capital Budget of £674.640m to Council.