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Issue - meetings

Budget 2022/23

Meeting: 22/02/2022 - Council (Item 66)

66 Budget 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 243 KB

At its meeting on 2 February 2022 the Executive Committee considered the 2022/23 budget and RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL that:

1.     a net budget of £9,821,535 be APPROVED;

2.     a Band D Council Tax of £134.36, an increase of £5.00pa, be APPROVED;

3.     growth items be included within the budget for 2022/23, as proposed in Appendix A to the report; and

4.     the capital programme, as proposed in Appendix B to the report, be APPROVED.   

 

The report before the Council incorporates the amendments sent to the Executive Committee separately.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

66.1           At its meeting on 2 February 2022 the Executive Committee considered the 2022/23 budget and made a recommendation to Council.  

66.2           The report which was considered by the Executive Committee had been circulated with the Agenda for the current meeting at Pages No. 7-32.

66.3           In proposing the recommendation, the Chair of the Executive Committee offered his thanks to everyone involved in the work to ensure the Council had a balanced budget to agree. The Lead Member for Finance and Asset Management seconded the recommendation from the Executive Committee.

66.4           During the brief discussion which ensued, a Member questioned whether the budgeted 2% increase for the pay award would be enough and whether other authorities were putting aside the same provision. In response, the Head of Finance and Asset Management explained that, in terms of what was affordable for the Council, a 2% pay award was on the high side; however, in respect of inflation and what employees needed, 2% was on the low side. Currently the offer on the table was approximately 1.5% but this was still under negotiation – the Council had reserves in place to deal with anything higher than 2% although he hoped this figure would not be exceeded. Referring to Appendix A, Section A, the Member questioned what neighbour notification letters were. In response, the Head of Development Services explained that the Development Management review was considering the introduction of neighbour notification letters which would be sent to neighbouring properties when a planning application was submitted. Referring to Section C, a Member questioned what the Regeneration Officer would be doing and the Head of Finance and Asset Management confirmed the post would add extra capacity to support the Council’s ambitions in Tewkesbury Town Centre which it was intended would be moved forward in the next year. In terms of the One Legal Business Development Manager, the Head of Finance and Asset Management explained that there were income targets in the One Legal budget and the post would, along with the rest of the service, be looking to maximise income to meet – and hopefully exceed – those targets. In addition, he responded to a query regarding the Section 106 Officer post and explained that the Officer was already in post using COVID-19 funding but, long-term, there was a need to pay for the post on an ongoing basis from Section 106 funds. The two year funding for the post would give time to get the Section 106 fund up and running.

66.5           A Member thanked the Head of Finance and Asset Management for the sessions he had provided to Members prior to the Council meeting which had explained in easy to understand terms what the different areas of the budget were. Another Member echoed those comments but indicated that he would abstain from the vote because he could not support a Council Tax rise that increased to the maximum at a time when residents were finding it hard to make ends meet.

66.6          The  ...  view the full minutes text for item 66


Meeting: 02/02/2022 - Executive (Item 84)

84 Budget 2022/23 pdf icon PDF 242 KB

To recommend a budget for 2022/23 to the Council. 

Subject To Call In:: No - Recommendation to Council.

Additional documents:

Decision:

That it be RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL that:

1.    a net budget of £9,821,535 be APPROVED;

2.    a Band D Council Tax of £134.36, an increase of £5.00pa, be APPROVED;

3.    growth items be included within the budget for 2022/23, as proposed in Appendix A to the report; and

4.    the capital programme, as proposed in Appendix B to the report, be APPROVED.  

Minutes:

84.1           The report of the Head of Finance and Asset Management, circulated at Pages No. 109-134, set out the proposals for the 2022/23 budget which the Committee was asked to recommend to Council. Attention was drawn to two amendments, which had been circulated separately, and Members were advised that, if agreed, the report to Council would be amended to include those matters.

84.2           The Head of Finance and Asset Management advised that Members were very familiar with the budget proposals so he would not talk through those. He referred to the amendments which had been circulated and explained that the first referred to clarification from the government on the accounting treatment relating to the new COVID-19 Additional Relief Fund (CARF). The scheme was aimed at providing business rate relief for businesses which had not benefitted from funding packages that had been available during the pandemic. At the same time, the government would cancel all appeals made by businesses in relation to a Material Change in Circumstances as a result of COVID and, to support that scheme, the government had awarded Councils additional S31 grant funding – for Tewkesbury Borough, the total funding was £2,340,291 with the share attributable to the Borough Council’s part of the retention scheme being £936,116. The CARF support was likely to run from February through to 30 September and would result in reliefs being applied against 2021/22 business rates; this would reduce business rates income in 2021/22 creating a larger collection fund deficit at year-end which would be met by the S31 grant allocation from the government so there was no impact on the net position of the budget. This information had not been included in the original report and the subsequent amendments suggested to the budget report were included for information. The second amendment related to an offer made by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) to settle the outstanding appeal by Virgin Media against one of its current appeals. The offer was to reduce the rateable value of the hereditament from £4.0million to £2.97million with effect from April 2017 – this was a reduction of 25.5% and was in excess of the specific provisions made for the appeal, although substantial general provisions did exist. Given the size of the reduction offered by the VOA, the Council’s NNDR1 return to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), which detailed business rates retention estimates for the forthcoming year, had been amended to reflect the latest position and, in turn, the proposed budget also needed to be amended. The reduction in rateable value of £1.03million impacted on many elements of the retention calculation including the net rates collectable, the levy, the multiplier cap and the collection fund deficit and would see the Council’s level of retention fall by £342,046 overall. In order to balance the budget it would be necessary to draw on reserves and, whilst the budget for 2022/23 could be balanced without any impact on the growth items included in the proposals,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 84

Action By: HF&AM