The Council considered a
report that presented a draft amended Budget for 2020/21 in light
of the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
In the ensuing debate,
reference was made to:-
(a)
any proposed use of Council Reserves. A
Member wished to make the point that the Council could only spend
its Reserves once and felt it important for this to be continually
borne in mind by his fellow Members both today and in the
future;
(b)
the work undertaken by the Section 151
Officer. A number of Members wished to
thank the Section 151 Officer and her finance team for their hard
work in preparing this draft amended Budget. In particular, these Members felt that the recent
Member Budget Setting Workshop had been an excellent
session.
For the motion (27): Cllrs Ball, Bridgewater,
Cheadle, Coulson, Crozier, Daniel, Davies, Edmonds, Ewings,
Hipsey, Jory, Kemp, Kimber, Leech,
Moody, Mott, Moyse, Ratcliffe, Renders, Ridgers, Samuel, Sellis,
Southcott, Spettigue, Vachon, Wood and
Yelland
Against
the motion (0):
Abstentions (0):
Absent
(4):
Cllrs Bolton, Heyworth, Musgrave and Pearce.
It was consequently “RESOLVED
that:
1.
the following five options (totalling
£501,000) be approved in order to produce an Amended Revenue
Budget for 2020-21:
-
To use the third tranche of COVID-19 funding
received from Central Government (£89,000);
-
To use the New Burdens Government Grant funding
received for the administration of the Business Rates Grants
(£130,000);
-
To utilise the 2019/20 Statement of Accounts
underspend (£133,000);
-
To allocate the uncommitted New Homes Bonus from
2020/21 to further fund the Revenue Base Budget (£69,000);
and
-
To reduce the Capital Budget for the remedial works
to the Tavistock Viaduct from £100,000 to £20,000 (NB.
this Capital Budget was being funded by New Homes Bonus which is
revenue funding) (£80,000);
2.
it be noted that the future capacity of Reserves (as
set out in Sections 5.8 and 5.9 of the presented agenda report) may
have to be called upon to meet any future financial challenges
and/or additional requirements;
3.
£70,000 be used from the Business Rates
Retention Earmarked Reserve to fund the Town Centre Support
initiative (as set out in Section 6 of the presented agenda
report); and
4.
approval be given to Tranche 4 of the Discretionary
Business Grants Policy (as attached at Appendix 2 of the presented
agenda report), to confirm that, in accordance with the Central
Government guidance, Town and Parish Councils are able to apply to
the scheme if they meet the eligibility criteria (as set out at
Section 11 of the presented agenda report).”