The Chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee welcomed members and officers to the Committee.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Erbil for whom Councillor Yusuf substituted.

Members of the Council are invited to identify any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relevant to the items on the agenda.

No declarations of interest were received.

Overview & Scrutiny Committee is recommended to:

·         Consider the savings and income proposals and funding and spending assumptions in the January Medium Term Financial Plan 2022/23 to 2026/27 to update Cabinet and report the outcome of their deliberations to Council on 24 February 2022.

The Chair thanked officers and members for attending to present the item on the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) for 2022/23 to 2026/27.

Councillor Maguire, Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement, introduced the item highlighting that they will cover the MTFP and the budget for next year (22/23). Councillor Maguire stated that the overall aim is to balance the Council’s budget during a period of uncertainity regarding Government support and funding. She thanked officers for their hard work on this.

Matt Bowmer, Director of Finance, delivered a presentation on the MTFP which covered the below points:

•         Key Messages

•         Settlement

•         Options to close the £3.732m gap

•         Budget Engagement

•         Next Steps

During his presentation he made the following key points:

•         Budget resilience for the longer is a priority.

•         The continued investment in Children’s and Adult Social Care will create a net savings of £7.8m. The focus throughout setting the budget has been ensuring that vulnerable residents are protected.

•         Costs relating to Covid are still ongoing. There is no expected further Government support after April 2022.

•         Gap of £3.732m before the decision on Council Tax is taken by the full Council meeting.

Settlement

·         There is potential for earlier implementation of Fair Funding/Business Rates Reset than was previously thought.

·         1.5bn allocated through: SFA £72m, Services Grant £637m and Social Care £822m

·         There will be £162m for social care reforms

·         There is an expected change in the method of distribution for service grants in future years which will benefit Enfield.

Spending

·         Pressure come from the welcomed increased to national insurances and increases to minimum wage.

·         The Council’s ambitious capital programme needs to be funded which will increase over the next five years.

·         There will be investment of £1.7m in services such as bulky waste, social worker apprentices and an Adult Social Care Regulatory Team.

Pressures

·         There are £7m worth of pressures for the Council. These come from areas such asHomelessness & Emergency Accommodation, reforecast post Covid-19, and SEN Transport

Savings & Income

·         There is a total of the new savings/income generation proposals of £8.614m in 2022/23 and £14.869m over the five year MTFP period.

·         £4.87m of the 2022/23 total will come from Efficiencies, Demand Management or Service Reduction.

·         £3.740m of the 2022/23 total is from income generation initiatives.

2022/23 Budget by department

•         There will be a continued approach of protecting services supporting the most vulnerable in the Borough

•         Existing pressures in these Demand Led Services plus Housing will be met.

•         Net increase of £4.2m for Adult Social Care will be achieved.

•         Net increase of £3.6m for Children’s and Education will be achieved.

Budget Consultation

·         The budget consultation started on the 5^th January 2022 and will run until 11^th February 2022.

·         The feedback from the consultation will be fed into the budget submitted to full Council on 24^th February 2022, as will the feedback received from this Committee.

Next steps

•         The consultation on the budget will continue until early February  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

To review the Cabinet decision taken on 8 December 2021 as a result of the matter having been called-in.

THIS ITEM WILL NOW BE HEARD AT THE OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY COMMITTEE MEETNG ON 20TH JANUARY 2022.

Due to an administrative error it was agreed this item would be heard at the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 20^th January 2022.

A formal meeting of the Committee will be held on 18 January 2022 subject to a call in being received.

It was noted that the next meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee would be the call in meeting on the 20^th January 2022.