The Committee considered the report of the Executive Director of Finance and Resources, which had been referred direct by the Cabinet from the meeting held on 13 January 2025.

The report presented the draft budget proposals for 2025/26 to 2029/30 and illustrated over the medium term how the Council’s revenue and capital resources were being prioritised to respond to increasing demand and unavoidable cost pressures for the delivery of key statutory services. 

The Committee asked a number of questions which were responded to by the relevant Cabinet members, highlights included:

·       How many voluntary redundancies were expected. (net position 13, 21 voluntary redundancies and 7 additional roles).

·       The outcomes of the in-depth children’s services review (internal officer led deep-dive in children’s social care cases, significant volume of spend goes to new brokerage team to ensure value for money)

·       Another in-depth review would be undertaken of children’s services by a number of Cabinet Members and senior officers to understand where the high costs were coming from and identify why children were coming into care.

·       The volume of debt to Essex County Council and how long it would take to pay this back.

·       Why electric vehicle charging had been deferred in the budget (work not mature enough for this budget reporting, although work had been progressed).

·       The settlement for supporting the cost of the national insurance contributions.

·       Estate efficiencies (EAP-01) – staff disproportionately impacted by a change in their workplace location.

·       The £350,000 proposed saving in relation to the Connected Southend Transformation focused care package review (SOC-02) and how this could disproportionately affect the most vulnerable with the top 10% and bottom 10% cost profile.

·       The estimated cost of National Insurance and Living Wage contributions and cost differential between the estimated government settlement (settlement details expected to be released in February 2025).

The Leader of the Council confirmed that Cabinet would consider the views of the Committee in respect of the following matters, in proposing the Council’s General Fund Revenue Budget for 2025/26 for adoption by the Council at its meeting to be held on 20 February 2025.

The relevant Cabinet Members undertook to provide written responses to questions raised by members of the Committee with regard to:

·       A breakdown of the additional National Insurance and Living Wage contributions for the Council’s wholly owned companies and the total exposure for the local authority. (Councillor D Cowan).

·       What projects were earmarked for the £1.238 million spend under the Climate Change provision, to deliver suitable projects aimed at reducing the impact of climate change and support the Council’s aspirations to achieve net zero emissions by 20230 in line with the Climate Emergency Declaration (Councillor P Collins).

At 9.25pm the Chair advised the Committee that the meeting was approaching the 3-hour time limit. In accordance with Overview and Procedure rule 2.48 of Part 5 section 2 of the Council Constitution, the Committee decided by a simple unanimous vote to extend the meeting for a period of up to 30 minutes to 10.00pm.

Councillor T Cox proposed a new recommendation, which was seconded by Councillor C Campbell, that read as follows:

“To request that the administration remove the proposed £350,000 saving from the ‘Connected Southend Transformation: Focused Care Package Review’ (SOC-02) and review the language for the planned review of packages in the top 10% and bottom 10% of the cost profile.”

The Chair undertook a vote on the new proposed recommendation, the result of which was:

For: 4

Against: 6

Abstentions: 5

The Chair declared the motion was lost and the substantive recommendations to Cabinet were noted.

Resolved:

That the following decisions of the Cabinet be noted:

“That Cabinet recommend to Council that it:

1.     Notes that a detailed Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2025/26 – 2029/30 will be available for consideration in February 2025 and approves the draft Medium Term Financial Forecast and estimated Earmarked Reserves Balances up to 2029/30 (Annexes 1 and 2 to Appendix 1).

2.     Considers and acknowledges the draft Section 151 Officer’s statement on the robustness of the proposed budget, the adequacy of the Council’s reserves and the Council’s Reserves Strategy (Appendix 2).

3.     Approves the appropriation of the sums to Earmarked Reserves totalling £3.619M (Appendix 3).

4.     Approves the appropriation of the sums from Earmarked Reserves totalling £1.695M (Appendix 3).

5.     Approves a General Fund Budget Requirement for 2025/26 of £165.059M and Council Tax Requirement of £109.472M (Appendix 4) (Paragraph 12.10, Table 5) and any required commencement of consultation, statutory or otherwise.

6.      Notes that the 2025/26 revenue budget has been prepared based on using £1.400M from accumulated Collection Fund surpluses to support the core budget and to allow for a smoothing of the budget gap (Paragraph 12.13).

7.     Approves a Council Tax increase of 4.99% for the Southend-on-Sea element of the Council Tax for 2025/26, being 2.99% for general use and 2.00% for Adult Social Care (Paragraph 12.14).

8.     Notes the position of the Council’s preceptors is to be determined:

·       Essex Police – no indication of Council Tax position

·       Essex Fire & Rescue Services – no indication of Council Tax position

·       Leigh-on-Sea Town Council – proposed Band D precept increase of 2.90%.

9.     Approves that no Special Expenses be charged other than Leigh-on-Sea Town Council precept for 2025/26.

10.  Considers and approves the proposed General Fund revenue budget investment and unavoidable cost pressures of £25.050M (Paragraph 9.2, Table 3 and Appendix 5).

11.  Considers and approves the proposed General Fund revenue budget savings and income generation initiatives for 2025/26 of £3.590M (Paragraph 9.3, Table 4 and Appendix 6).

12.  Approves the Dedicated Schools Grant budget and its relevant distribution as recommended by the School Forum (Appendix 7).

13.  Considers and approves the Capital Investment Strategy for 2025/26 to 2029/30 (Appendix 8) and the Capital Investment Policy (Annex 1 to Appendix 8).

14.  Considers and approves the proposed:

(i)             new schemes and additions to the Capital Investment Programme for the period 2025/26 to 2029/30 totalling £28.3M for the General Fund and £11.9M for the Housing Revenue Account (Appendix 9).

(ii)            schemes subject to viable business cases that have been identified as a priority, totalling £9.7M for the General Fund and £8.1M for the Housing Revenue Account (Appendix 9).

15.  Notes the proposed changes to the current Capital Investment Programme that were considered for approval as part of the Financial Performance Report – Period 8 earlier on this agenda (Appendix 10).

16.  Approves the proposed Capital Investment Programme for 2025/26 to 2029/30 of £158.0M (Appendix 11) of which £59.2M is supported by external funding.

17.   Approves the revised Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) Policy for 2024/25 and the Minimum Revenue Provision (MRP) Policy for 2025/26 (Paragraphs 17.12 to 17.15 and Appendices 12a and 12b) and the prudential indicators (Appendix 13). 

18.  Approves the operational boundary and authorised limits for borrowing for 2025/26 which are set at £380M and £390M respectively (Appendix 13).”

Note: This is an Executive Function save that approval of the final budget following Cabinet on 11^th February 2025 is a Council Function

Cabinet Members:

Councillor D Cowan, Leader of the Council

Councillor P Collins, Cabinet Member for Finance, Assets and Investments