Agenda item

Budget report 2017/18 and Medium Term Financial Plan 2017/18 to 2020/21

To receive the report of the Executive Director of Finance, Resources & Customer Services presenting for approval the Budget for 2017/18 and Medium Term Financial Plan (General Fund). (Report No: 194A)

(Key Decision – Reference No: 4371)

Members are asked to note that:

· Recommendations 2.1 – 2.12 were endorsed and recommended onto Council for formal approval by Cabinet on 8 February 2017.

· The report will need to be considered in conjunction with Report No: 204A on the Part 2 Council agenda.

Minutes:

Councillor Taylor moved and Councillor Lemonides seconded the report of the Executive Director of Finance, Resources and Customer Services (171A) presenting for approval the Budget for 2017/18 and the Medium Term Financial Plan.

NOTED

1. Recommendations 2.1 – 2.12 had been endorsed and recommended onto Council for formal approval by Cabinet on 8 February 2017.

2. The revised Appendix 10 to the report as tabled at the meeting.

3. The report would need to be considered in conjunction with Report No: 204A on the Part 2 Council agenda (Min ??? refers).

4. The following comments highlighted by the Leader of the Council:

a. He could not excuse the way that the Government, since 2010, had systematically reduced the support to public services. Local Government was the bedrock of public provision from cradle to grave and had served this country well.

b. The current Government was cutting so hard and so deep that he felt that the fabric of local provision was on the brink of collapse.

c. Budgets should be about improving services but local government was being defined by Conservative financial mismanagement and continuing austerity policies. It was now 10 years since the financial crash and things ought to be improving. Instead Government deficits are increasing and services being cut.

d. Local Authorities were being instructed that they must find the extra money for social care but this will mean further cuts, dirtier streets, less public provision, riskier child protection and closure of voluntary sector initiatives.

e. The Conservatives’ ideological desire to shrink the state and hand over services to a marketised, privatised and unaccountable system, making services uncompetitive, under-resourced and overburdened is overriding the needs of ordinary people.

f. Despite the difficult times he felt that there have been achievements to celebrate including the Meridian Water proposals, new housing opportunities, the provision of social care and children’s services to thousands of people, improvements to schools, keeping parks and playgrounds open and the streets clean.

g. This has been achieved through sound financial management and despite the lack of fair funding for Enfield. If the Council had the same level of funding as Westminster we would have an extra £86m.

h. The administration were resolved to manage the authorities money carefully and would take tough action on the overspend. Many other London boroughs were also struggling to maintain spending within budgets.

i. Enfield was good at collecting council taxes increasing the collection rate and reducing arrears by 2.1m.

j. Having set a zero increase Council tax for 7 years it was with reluctance that he was proposing at 1.99% increase plus 3% social care precept which would add £1.10 per week to the average band D property. In contrast Government cuts since 2010 equate to £710 per household.

k. To meet adult social care pressures the council needed an extra £8.6m for social care and an extra £2.5m for Children’s Services. To note that the Leader of Surrey County Council had been looking for a 15% increase in Council Tax to help pay for social care.

l. Enfield had taken tough decisions to keep the impact on the residents as low as possible. They had borrowed to invest and improve Enfield for housing and jobs, improving the quality of life while the Government have borrowed to fund austerity.

m. The Leader recommended the budget to Council and looked forward to a costed alternative from the opposition.

5. The comments of the Majority Group:

a. Thanks to Council officers for their support and efforts in delivery of the budget proposals alongside the key achievements made by the current administration as highlighted by individual Cabinet Members.

b. To acknowledge that if Enfield had been funded fairly and received the same funding as Westminster, they would have had £86m more per year to spend on council services.

c. To acknowledge the huge reductions in health care funding which was felt to be a national crisis: Enfield had received that second largest percentage reduction of any council in England. Enfield health and social care services were in need of significant and sustained investment. This was a time of unprecedented demand on all the health and social care services not forgetting people with learning disabilities.

d. To acknowledge the challenges presented by the unprecedented cuts to the services to children, young people and schools despite historical underfunding which the department were working well to address: in 2016/17, 97% of schools had been judged good or better. Next year would be even more difficult for education as a result of the £3m cut in the direct schools grant.

e. Pride in the record on housing and innovative alternatives being developed to fund housing needs. The provision of new housing on the small sites and the new properties being built on the Alma Estate. A start on the 16,000 new homes planned. To acknowledge the £1.5 a year savings being made by Housing Gateway in providing homes for the homeless: over 400 new properties had been bought.

f. The value of work of local government in supporting local people, delivering good services and bringing communities together and the failure of the Opposition to lobby for more money for Enfield and support for Government cuts.

g. To recognise the improving investment in the cultural portfolio and the importance of the voluntary sector in meeting the increasing needs of vulnerable people, despite significant government cuts and systematic underfunding.

h. To acknowledge the need to focus on Government cuts to the public health budget and to continue to fight to receive the funding that the services deserved, to tackle growing public health problems such as smoking, obesity and drug and alcohol addiction. To acknowledge that Enfield received less than half the funding of other areas: the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea received £130 per head for public health, compared to Enfield’s £40. To be able to continue with the excellent public safety work carried out in association with the Police on gangs and domestic abuse.

i. Innovative regeneration policies in Enfield had resulted in an increase in the employment rate which was now above the national average. The desire to do more to help the high street and continue with projects such as Jobsnet which were under threat as a result of proposals to close the Job Centre Plus in Edmonton.

j. In response to the comment made about the lack of funding for highway improvements to point out that money or highway improvements was shown in the indicative budget. To make members aware of achievements in environmental services: that there had been improvements in recycling rates at Barrowell Green, provision of new play facilities, 500 new trees planted, sustainable urban drainage systems piloted, Enfield had been judged best in London for parking and the Cycle Enfield Programme.

6. The following issues highlighted by the Opposition Group:

a. The opposition to the budget as a whole and the assertion that they could not support the proposed 1.99% general increase in Council Tax but would support the 3% increase for Adult Social Care.

b. The concern about what they saw as the poor record of the Labour administration’s financial management of the Council and incompetence in the delivery of services: including shortcomings in housing, poor treatment of tenants and their representatives, ignoring residents’ objections to policies such as Cycle Enfield, difficulties in communication, failure to plan ahead and their irresponsible borrowing programme.

c. To recognise that it was not the role of the Opposition to put forward an alternative budget. Instead principles would be put forward which should have guided decision making. A key concern was the failure to take seriously the reductions in the Revenue Support Grant signalled early by the Coalition Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2010. To acknowledge that the administration should have tackled the overspend earlier in the year when it first became apparent.

d. To recognise that the budget increase would have been less if there had not been a £6.2m overspend, due to a failure to control budgets, and if the new Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, had not imposed an increase in the GLA precept.

e. To acknowledge that the administration could not continue to blame the Government for the financial situation and that the authority should take responsibility for their own financial decision making live within their means. Other Councils had suffered from similar funding cuts and had found innovative ways of delivering services including sharing services to save money.

f. To acknowledge failures, incompetence and mismanagement including the failure to collect revenue which could have prevented the proposed cuts to parks expenditure, welcoming the proposal to remove the funding for the Market Gardening Initiative, the failures in the introduction of the new call centre, the three failed procurements at Elizabeth House and delay in opening the new care home resulting in a loss in prospective revenue.

g. The need to acknowledge the huge increase in borrowing which had more than doubled since 2010. The community based investment was unchartered water for which the Council had little experience, the lack of provision of dilapidated highways and the view that the Council was not taking forward the things that needed to be done.

h. To be aware of the feeling of discrimination felt by and the impact of the cuts on parents and carers of young people with Special Educational Needs including cuts in Special Educational Needs transport, support packages for vulnerable young people leaving care, and those with special guardianship orders who do not receive the same support as main stream foster carers.

i. While acknowledging reductions in Government funding for revenue and support for the London Living Wage, there was dismay at the loss of experienced staff and the reduction of staff numbers by 17%, the money spent on agency staff, the pay card payments to gift websites, posting pay slips, the lack of joined up thinking in for example posting out letters at the same time as hand delivering electoral registration information.

j. Concern about the huge capital commitments on Meridian Water, Estate renewal and Housing Gateway. About the high expenditure and what was seen as incompetence in the housing area, in the relatively few new homes built so far, the large numbers of unlet garages which represented a loss of income and which could have been replaced with new housing.

k. To acknowledge that Government funding for education had been maintained with an increase in the direct schools grant, more funds for early years, help for working parents and for those with high needs and concern about ENSEN (the company set up to provide services to schools).

7. Councillor Taylor’s summing up, lamenting the failure of the Opposition to produce an alternative budget and commending the budget to Councillors as the best protection for local residents.

8. The Mayor’s refusal to accept the amendment proposed by Councillor Alessandro Georgiou due to time constraints.

9. During the debate Councillor A Georgiou proposed and Councillor Stewart seconded a proposal to extend the time available for the budget debate by 10 minutes. This was agreed.

Following the debate, the recommendations in the report were put to the vote and approved with the following results.

AGREED

1. With regard to the revenue budget for 2017/18:

a. To set the Council Tax Requirement for Enfield at £114.169m in 2017/18

b. To set the Council Tax at Band D for Enfield’s services for 2017/18 at £1,201.23 (paragraph 8.1), (b1) being a 1.99% general Council Tax increase and (b2) 3.00% Adult Social Care Precept.

c. To approve the statutory calculations and resolutions set out in Appendix 10.

2 With regard to the Prudential Code and the Capital Programme:

a. To note the information regarding the requirements of the Prudential Code (as detailed in section 9 of the report

b. To agree the Approved Capital Programme for 2016/17 to 2020/21 as set out in section 9 (and Appendix 9).

c. To note the Indicative Capital Programme and to agree that these indicative programmes be reviewed in the light of circumstances at the time

d. To agrees the Prudential Indicators, the Treasury Management Strategy, the Minimum Revenue Provision policy and the criteria for investments set out in section 9 of the report and Appendices 4 & 5.

3. To agree the Medium Term Financial Plan, including the savings proposals set out in Appendix 2, and adopts the key principles set out

in paragraph 10.9 of the report .

4. With regard to the robustness of the 2017/18 budget and the adequacy of the Council’s earmarked reserves and balances:

a. To note the risks and uncertainties inherent in the 2017/18 budget and the Medium Term Financial Plan (sections 10 & 11) and agrees the actions in hand to mitigate them.

b. To note the advice of the Executive Director of Finance, Resources & Customer Services regarding the recommended levels of contingencies, balances and earmarked reserves (section 12 of the report) and has regard to the comments of the Executive Director (section 13 of the report) when making final decisions on the 2017/18 budget.

c. To agree the recommended levels of central contingency and general balances (section 12 of the report).

5. To agree the Schools Budget for 2017/18 (Section 5.11 and Appendix 13).

6. To agree the Fees and Charges for Environmental Services for 2017/18 (Section 10.12 and Appendix 12 to the report)

7. To agrees the Fees and Charges for Adult Social Care Services for 2017/18 (Sec. 10.13 and Appendix 11), subject to consultation.

8. That the New Homes Bonus is applied as a one-off contribution to the General Fund in 2017/18.

9. To agree the adoption of the new flexible use of capital receipts as announced by the Department for Communities and Local Government for 2016/17 to 2019/20 and the proposed use of new capital receipts in 2016/17 and 2017/18 (Appendix 14). To note that, in using this flexibility, £2m of capital receipts have been used as one-off funding in 2017/18 in order to balance the budget, highlighting the need for fair funding settlements in the future.

10. To note that the Council signed up to the Government’s four-year funding offer during 2016/17 and published an efficiency plan (Appendix 15 to the report). As such, it is not expected that the future years’ Government funding figures shown in this report will change.

11. To note the feedback and minutes from the Budget Consultation and Overview and Scrutiny Committee Budget Meeting on 19January 2017 as set out in Appendix 1 to the report.

In accordance with standing order regulations 2014 the vote was recorded in relation to the decisions in (1b2, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11)

For: 56

Councillor Abdul Abdullahi

Councillor Daniel Anderson

Councillor Yasemin Brett

Councillor Alev Cazimoglu

Councillor Nesil Cazimoglu

Councillor Erin Celebi

Councillor Lee Chamberlain

Councillor Bambos Charalambous

Councillor Jason Charalambous

Councillor Katherine Chibah

Councillor Lee David-Sanders

Councillor Dogan Delman

Councillor Nick Dines

Councillor Guney Dogan

Councillor Christiana During

Councillor Pat Ekechi

Councillor Turgut Esendagli

Councillor Peter Fallart

Councillor Krystle Fonyonga

Councillor Achilleas Georgiou

Councillor Alessandro Georgiou

Councillor Christine Hamilton

Councillor Ahmet Hasan

Councillor Elaine Hayward

Councillor Robert Hayward

Councillor Ertan Hurer

Councillor Suna Hurman

Councillor Jansev Jemal

Councillor Doris Jiagge

Councillor Eric Jukes

Councillor Nneka Keazor

Councillor Adeline Kepez

Councillor Joanne Laban

Councillor Michael Lavender

Councillor Dino Lemonides

Councillor Derek Levy

Councillor Mary Maguire

Councillor Don McGowan

Councillor Andy Milne

Councillor Terence Neville

Councillor Ayfer Orhan

Councillor Ahmet Oykener

Councillor Anne Marie Pearce

Councillor Daniel Pearce

Councillor Vicki Pite

Councillor Michael Rye

Councillor George Savva

Councillor Toby Simon

Councillor Alan Sitkin

Councillor Edward Smith

Councillor Andrew Stafford

Councillor Claire Stewart

Councillor Jim Steven

Councillor Doug Taylor

Councillor Haydar Ulus

Councillor Glynis Vince

Against: 0

Abstentions: 0

The vote recorded in regard to recommendations 1 a, b1, c, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 9 was as follows:

For: 34