*O&S
15
The Section 151 Officer conducted a
presentation to Members that outlined the history behind the
establishment of the Financial Stability Review Group (FSRG) and
the progress that had been made to date.
As part of the presentation,
reference was made to:-
-
the FSRG being set up in November 2017 in direct
response to the ‘One Council’ vote;
-
the objectives of the FSRG being to:
o
examine all aspects of the Council’s finances
in order to ensure that the Borough Council had a sustainable and
secure future and was able to continue to deliver services to
residents;
o
re-examine all Council expenditure to ensure that
best practice was employed and value for money achieved;
and
o
promote and support the implementation of new ideas,
especially in the area of income generation.
-
the seven principles of the FSRG being
that:
o
statutory services should be protected and, if
possible, improved;
o
current staffing levels should be
maintained;
o
the views and opinions of staff members at all
levels would be sought;
o
no line of expenditure was to be considered
sacrosanct or protected;
o
in order to ensure a sustainable future, it be
recognised that the Council would have to accept higher levels of
risk than had previously been the case;
o
the importance of shared services in saving costs be
recognised; and
o
leadership from both Members and senior officers
would be vital.
-
the items previously considered by the FSRG
included:
o
the Council’s Pensions Strategy;
o
the Waste Procurement process;
o
the Council’s Accommodation
Strategy;
o
car parking charges;
o
Commercial Property;
o
Business Rates Pilot; and
o
New Homes Bonus;
-
the first meeting in the 2019/20 Municipal Year of
the FSRG to be held in September 2019.
During the subsequent
debate, the following points were raised:-
(a)
The Committee was advised that the Council had now
established an Invest to Earn Committee with formal decision-making
powers and the close relationship with the work of the FSRG was
noted;
(b)
Members commented that the work of the FSRG had
ensured that the annual budget setting process was now a far more
smoother exercise;
(c)
The Section 151 Officer advised that the Council
continued to lobby Central Government with regard to the extent of
the cuts that had been imposed on local authorities. Furthermore, at the recent Local Government
Association Annual Conference, delegates had been very vocal to the
Central Government Ministers in attendance that Councils could not
continue to absorb such cuts to their core funding;
(d)
In respect of the upcoming Member Budget Setting
Workshops, officers confirmed that the projections would reflect
what they considered to be the worst case scenario.