Agenda item

The purpose of the report is for this Committee to consider and recommend its revenue budget for inclusion in the Council’s overall 2024/25 revenue budget. These recommendations will be submitted to the Policy and Finance Committee on 8 February 2024 when it considers the overall revenue and capital budgets for 2024/25 so recommendations can be made to a Special Meeting of the Council on 21 February 2024 regarding the budgets to be set and level of Council Tax for the District for 2024/25.

The Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer presented his report which was asking the Committee to consider and recommend its revenue budget for inclusion in the Council’s overall 2024/25 revenue budget.  The recommendations would firstly be submitted to the Policy & Finance Committee on 8 February 2024 which would consider the overall revenue and capital budgets for 2024/25 so that recommendations could be made to a Special Meeting of the Council on 21 February 2024 regarding the budgets to be set and level of Council Tax for the district for 2024/25.

The Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer stated that forecasting remained problematic particularly due to ongoing inflationary pressures and the volatility around other external factors affecting the economy and therefore budgets had been compiled using the best information available. It was confirmed that the current levels of service provision would remain unchanged and that there was no growth in the revenue budget for 2024/25.  The net changes in the revenue budget between 2023/24 and 2024/25 were outlined in Paragraph 4.4 of the report, the main highlights being  salary inflation; IT costs; an increase in the external audit fee; and a reduction in election services costs.

The savings totalling £249k identified in the Financial Strategy had been listed in Paragraph 4.5 of the report with the largest saving being a reduction in the number of digital based projects. There would be no new planned capital programme for the committee for 2024/25.

The Chair invited questions. A wide range of questions were asked. Firstly, these focused on the table of savings where an explanation was sought regarding some of the items listed. There was concern expressed over reducing the GIS contract and the deletion of the part-time web administrator post.  Clarification was also sought with regard to the last saving of £6k in the table.

The Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer explained that the last entry in the table at Paragraph 4.5 should read “Reduce Legal Services subscriptions costs through West Sussex-wide group purchasing. Recharge Payroll service costs to third parties”.  Members of the Committee had been notified by email of this change and had been provided with an updated report on 26 January 2024. In terms of reducing GIS [Geographic Information System] the Head of Technology and Digital explained that some of the functionality had now been written in-house meaning that the Council was not losing this functionality, it was just not having to pay for it. On the deletion of the web administrator post, the work that had needed to be undertaken to make the Council’s web site accessibility compliant had now been undertaken, so that post was no longer needed.

An explanation was sought as to what the Croner [professional] subscription was and what its deletion would mean for the HR service.  The Human Resources Manager explained that this was a digital information service that the section used to procure  advice on areas such as employment law and tribunals. Losing this subscription service meant that the HR team would have to undertake its own research using the internet at zero cost. Members were reassured that HR Officers were highly skilled professionals making up a very qualified and experienced team and attended regular training. There were also other information sources that could be used. It was confirmed that this saving would not have been proposed by the Human Resources team if it had not been confident that it could not sufficiently function without it.

Other concerns raised over the savings proposed were around the impact of reducing the frequency of the annual residents’ survey and what the reduction was; and similarly; the reduction in the publication of the Arun Times. The Group Head of Organisational Excellence reminded Members that the decision to reduce the frequency of producing the annual residents’ survey annually to bi-annual had been approved and made by the Policy & Finance Committee in October 2023. The impact of this would be that this would mean that the Council would not receive resident feedback on the delivery of its services as frequently as it did now. Turning to the proposed changes for the Arun Times, Officers were still assessing the implications from moving from two hard copy publications in 2025 to one hard copy and one digital copy. A request was made that in rolling out this change that the hard copy of Arun Times be issued first so that it could provide adequate warning and very clearly publicise the change confirming that the next edition would be provided electronically.

Turning to Appendix A of the report, under Corporate Support Committee, Management and Support Services, a request was made for more detail regarding the decrease in the customer services budget. The substantial increase in print and post services budget was also queried. A question was asked around the salary adjustment of £101k and what this meant. The Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer responded explaining that with the customer services budget line, there were a couple of vacant posts that would not be filled from 1 April 2024 and so the budget had been reduced to reflect that. The postal services budget had been incorrectly set at a too low figure for 23/24 and so this reflected that necessary correction for the 2024/25 budget. With the salary adjustment, Members were reminded that when the initial Medium Term Financial Strategy [MTFS] had been presented to the Policy & Finance Committee in October 2023, that strategy had made an assumption of a pay increase at around 6 to 6.5% to reflect the economic landscape at that time which was different then to what it was now. He felt that the likely percentage pay increase for 2024-25 which was likely to be in the region of 4%. The £101k reflected that downward adjustment.

Returning its attention to the table setting out the proposed saving measures equating to £249k, concern was expressed over the possible  consequences and risks to the Council and whether any risk would impede the delivery of the savings. It was hoped that there would be no additional cost associated to rectifying any consequences that may need addressing as a result of adopting the savings. This point was acknowledged.

          Having received some further questions relating to Arun Times and questions regarding cyber security and its increasing risk and cost to the Council, Councillor Tandy then proposed the recommendations which were then seconded by Councillor O’Neill,

          The Committee

                     RESOLVED – That

(1)  It agrees the 2024/25 Revenue Budget as illustrated in Appendix A of the report; and

(2)  It agrees the 2024/25 Capital Programme as illustrated in Appendix B of the report.

The Committee

          RECOMMENDS TO THE POLICY & FINANCE COMMITTEE

That the Revenue Budget for the Corporate Support Committee be included in the overall General Fund Budget we the Policy & Finance Committee considers the overall budgets at its meeting.