1. That the the Financial Sustainability Strategy set out at Appendix 1 to the submitted report, be approved.

2. That the Medium Term Financial Strategy set out at Appendix 2 to the report and the resulting Medium Term Financial Forecast and Earmarked Reserves Balances up to 2024/25 (Annexes 1 and 2 to Appendix 2), be approved.

3. That the Section 151 Officer’s report on the robustness of the proposed budget, the adequacy of the Council’s reserves and the Reserves Strategy (Appendix 3 to the report), be noted.

4. That the appropriation of the sums to earmarked reserves totalling £3.370 million (Appendix 4 to the report), be approved.

5. That the the appropriation of the sums from earmarked reserves totalling £11.892 million (Appendix 4 to the report), be approved.

6. That a General Fund Budget Requirement for 2020/21 of £130.428M and Council Tax Requirement of £84.347M (Appendix 5a to the report) and any required commencement of consultation, statutory or otherwise, be approved.

7. That a Council Tax increase of 3.99% for the Southend-on-Sea element of the Council Tax for 2020/21, being 1.99% for general use and 2% for Adult Social care (Section 10.10 of the report), be approved.

8. That it be noted that the 2020/21 revenue budget has been prepared on the basis of using £2 million from the Collection Fund to allow for smoothing of the budget gap across the lifetime of the Medium Term Financial Strategy to 2024/25 (Section 10.9 of the report).

9. That the position of the Council’s preceptors, be noted:

·         Essex Police – approved Council Tax increase of 2.94%;

·         Essex Fire & Rescue Services – approved Council Tax increase of 1.99%;

·         Leigh-on-Sea Town Council – approved precept increase of 6.04%;

10. That no Special Expenses be charged other than Leigh-on-Sea Town Council precept for 2020/21.

11. That the proposed General Fund revenue budget investment and reprioritisation of £5.355M (Appendix 6 to the report), be approved.

12. That the additional one-off investment items, as set out in section 10.8 of the report and included within the appropriations (Appendix 7 to the report), be approved.

13. That the Dedicated Schools Grant budget and its relevant distribution as recommended by the Education Board (Appendix 8 to the report), be approved.

14. That the Capital Investment Strategy for 2020/21 to 2024/25 (Appendix 9 to the report) and the Capital Investment Policy (Annex 1 to Appendix 9 to the report), be approved.

15. That the new schemes and additions to the Capital Investment Programme for the period 2020/21 to 2024/25 totalling £28.4M for the General Fund and £18.7M for the Housing Revenue Account (Appendix 10 to the report), be approved.

16. That the schemes subject to viable business cases for the period 2020/21 to 22/23 (Appendix 10 to the report), be approved.

17. That the proposed changes to the current Capital Investment Programme (Appendix 11 to the report), be approved.

18. That the proposed Capital Investment Programme for 2020/21 to 2024/25 (Appendix 12 to the report) be approved and it be noted that the changes to the approved programme will result in a proposed Capital Investment Programme of £204.8M for 2020/21 to 2024/25 (Appendix 12 to the report) of which £51.3M is supported by external funding (Section 11.11 of the report).

19. That the Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) Policy for 2020/21 (Appendix 13 to the report) and the prudential indicators (Appendix 14 to the report), be approved.

20. That the operational boundary and authorised limits for borrowing for 2020/21 are set at £375M and £385M respectively (Appendix 14 to the report), be approved.