Agenda item

2020/21 Budget and 2020/21 to 2024/25 Medium Term Financial Plan

To receive the report of the Acting Executive Director of Resources, presenting for approval the Budget for 2020/21 and Medium-Term Financial Plan 2020/21 to 2024/25.

(Report No: 190A)

(Key Decision – Reference No: 5076)

Members are asked to note that Cabinet considered the report at their meeting on 12 February 2020 and recommended it to Council.

Minutes:

Councillor Maguire moved and Councillor Caliskan seconded the report of the Acting Executive Director Resources presenting the 2020/21 Budget and 2020/21 to 2024/25 Medium Term Financial Plan for Council approval. (Report No: 190A)

NOTED

1. Recommendations 2.1 – 2.10 had been endorsed and recommended onto Council for formal approval by Cabinet on 12 February 2020.

2. The amendment to recommendation 2.1 (ii) set out in the green update sheet as follows:

“2.1(ii) a. Set the Council Tax at Band D for Enfield’s services for 2020/21 at £1,363.77 (section 7), being a 1.99% general Council Tax increase and a 2.00% Adult Social Care Precept.

b. Set the Council Tax at Band D for the total of Enfield’s services and GLA services for 2020/21 at £1,694.8

c. Note the GLA element of the Total Band D for 2020/21 being £332.07”

3. The following comments highlighted by Councillor Maguire, Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement when moving the report.

a. That once again the Council would receive insufficient funding from the Government. Since 2010 it had suffered a cut of more than 50%, down from £191.2m to £94.7m. In real terms, taking account of inflation, this would be £178m.

b. Enfield also suffers from the damping mechanism, meaning it receives £11m less than Government assesses we should. This equates to £80 for every household. A £76m budget gap.

c. Many services have increased costs including social and children’s services.

d. Nevertheless, the administration had managed to set a resilient and sustainable budget which will protect vulnerable residents.

e. The Government’s one-off approach to funding could only be a sticking plaster. Despite multiple promises the settlement this year only covers one year which makes planning ahead difficult.

f. The Adult Social Care precept will bring in £4.5m which will not be enough.

g. However, despite reduced funding and many savings, the Council continues to provide the best possible services.

h. Thanks to the Chief Executive, Executive Directors and all the staff who had worked so hard to find every penny of savings and deliver this budget.

i. This year the Council had produced a 5-year financial plan, a 10 year Capital strategy and a ten year treasury management strategy to provide additional transparency.

j. The savings identified were realistic and achievable. It was proposed that the Council uses £1.5m of its reserves which keeps them at an acceptable level of £39m. 17% of the net budget.

k. Full details are set out in the report including all savings and income generation schemes, the schools’ budget, fees and charges, anticipated pressures and including an additional £10.5m for adult social care, using £1m of the Community Infrastructure levy to support the recommendations from the recent poverty commission, 0.5m for flytipping.

l. The green update sheet contains an amendment highlighting the contribution to the Mayor of London.

m. The Council Tax will increase by 1.99% including the increase in the Mayor of London’s levy of 3.91%, this will result in an average increase of £1.22 a week.

n. The Council would maintain pressure on the Government to fully fund local government, provide long term funding commitments, make sure that Enfield received fair funding and produce the promised Green Paper on Adult Social Care.

4. Councillor Laban, Leader of the Opposition responded highlighting:

a. After ten years of this Labour administration the people of Enfield were suffering from higher taxes, higher borrowing and poorer services.

b. The building on the small sites were still not completed, security costs were spiralling, the number of crossing patrols had been reduced, there were failed procurements, contracts had been neglected and nothing had been done about the Carnegie Library in Ponders End.

c. Properties had been left empty, meaning less income coming in. The small sites properties were still not occupied, the Council had yet to complete on a deal with a housing association. The Enfield Innovation Limited deal had not been secured and there was a risk that it would fall through. There were problems with the delivery of housing at Meridian Water. There were no plans to make the print services more commercial.

d. There had been very few responses to the budget consultation only 83 compared with over 5,500 on the recent petition about the rubbish collection services. Such a small sample cannot be reflective.

e. Parents valued the school crossing partrols which were being reduced.

f. Money had been wasted on a £100,000 internal staff survey and £100,000 on hospitality. Every year the Council was overspending. £5.1m last year. The budget is not robust. The large capital programme created an added pressure which will impact on day to day services. These should be the priority.

1. The comments of the Majority Group:

a. The need to acknowledge that several Conservative Councils have gone under because of the lack of Government funding.

b. Despite the cuts the Council is still required to provide services. There have been savage cuts to services for children and the elderly. Twenty-four children’s centres have been reduced to one. 90% of youth budget has been cut. Thanks to the Mayor of London the Council has been able to invest in a new youth project to help keep young people away from crime. There is a deficit in school budgets. Many teaching assistants have been lost. Where the Council can, they have been investing in youth services, in special educational needs including the new school in Southgate.

c. The budget was resilient and sound based on proper Labour values. The administration were custodians holding power on behalf of the residents. They were determined to invest in the community and would not turn their back on vulnerable people.

d. Insourcing was an appropriate policy. Council led services obtained better results. The Council can ensure that staff are paid the London Living Wage. Housing repairs, cemetery management and transport services had all been bought back under the Council’s control delivering a better service for residents.

e. Concern that the Government was proposing to disregard criteria such as deprivation and homelessness in their allocation of future local government funding.

f. The budget was the culmination of many months hard work, informed by political values and the excellent professionalism and judgement of officers.

g. The Council was investing in addressing climate change and were producing a new strategy. They had invested in LED street lighting which will not only save energy but also provide brighter lighting. The new waste collection services would also boost recycling levels and help protect the environment and Energetik would significantly reduce energy consumption. Other green schemes included low traffic neighbourhoods, encouraging people not to use their cars, resulting in cleaner air, and flood alleviation schemes.

h. Funding would be available to support and empower young people. Parenting was particularly important. There would be a programme of young parenting courses at the Dugdale Centre, additional spending on youth workers, covering potential crime hot spots and places where there were concerns about youth violence.

i. After ten years of Conservative austerity difficult decisions had had to be made but the Council had 800 front line staff working in environment on the highway and the street scene, preserving safe clean green spaces and creating flood alleviation, sustainable drainage and rain garden projects. £38m had been obtained for regeneration projects including from the Liveable Neighbourhoods Fund for Enfield Town.

A recognition of the pressures in adult social care and support for the adult social care precept.

6. The following comments from the Opposition Group:

a. Concern about gang violence and support for the Nexus youth project and other investments in youth services. If the opposition had been in power they would double the resources for youth services and reverse the changes to the bin services, if they could find significant savings.

b. Councils should be continually improving and providing value for money. The Opposition felt that they could make further cost cutting measures, find additional savings and strengthen income targets. Insourcing was in their view not necessary.

c. Wandsworth Conservative Council had the best levels of service and the lowest Council tax of any other authority.

d. The Government were determined to support the Northern constituencies which had been let down by Europe and it was right that these areas of the country should be prioritised.

e. Support for fairer funding for Enfield and agreement that Enfield had been let down for many years by all governments through the use of the damping mechanism.

f. There had been a 5% increase in funding to education through the direct schools grant and money had been allocated to lessen the impact of changes to the funding formula.

g. Praise for the Schools Forum who were doing an excellent job in allocating the new formula and welcome support for the new children’s premium.

h. The view that school standards had increased despite the cuts.

i. That the ambition for 10,000 new homes at Meridian Water did not match the figures in the Leeside Area Action Plan for 5,000 new homes. The development at Meridian Water was a significant undertaking and there was no guarantee that it would turn out well. It could have a negative impact on other council services.

j. Money had been wasted on ICT projects and transformation schemes. It was now harder to contact the Council. Many people had vented their anger on social media.

k. Funding from Government had increased. There was more money for social care.

j. Some disappointment that there was only half a page in the budget documents on the climate emergency.

k. The new rubbish collection service had experienced many problems and bins were not being collected.

l. Too much money was being spent on consultants.

The meeting was adjourned at 8.45pm at this point in the proceedings due to a medical emergency.

When the meeting was resumed, Councillor Barnes proposed and Councillor Laban seconded a motion to end the meeting bringing in the guillotine motion.

This was agreed without a vote.

The budget report was then agreed following a roll call vote detailed below:

AGREED

1. With regard to the revenue budget for 2020/21:

(i) To set the Council Tax Requirement for Enfield at £133.276m in 2020/21;

(ii) a. To set the Council Tax at Band D for Enfield’s services for 2020/21 at £1,363.77 (section 7), being a 1.99% general Council Tax increase and a 2.00% Adult Social Care Precept.

b. To set the council Tax at Band D for the total of Enfield’s services and GLA services for 2020/21 at £1694.80

c. To note the GLA element of the total Band D for 2020/21 being £332.07

2. To approve the Medium -erm Financial Plan (MTFP), including:

(i) the pressures set out in Appendix 3, £30.148m in 2020/21 (partly offset by a £3.600m benefit from the Pensions Actuarial Review to give a net figure of £26.548m), which includes:

• £1.5m for additional social workers within Children’s Social Care to address caseload pressures.

• a further £10.3m allocated in 2020/21 to address Adults and Children’s Social Care pressures, partly funded from further Social Care Support Grant allocated by the Government in 2020/21 (£5.4m).

(ii) £2.405m investment in transformation funded by the flexible use of capital receipts.

(iii) an allocation of £0.5m per annum within the 2019/20 and 2020/21 budgets which is recommended to provide mentoring related to serious youth violence and improve data to better target resources (para 10.7).

(iv) full year effects of prior year savings and income generation totalling £3.279m set out in Appendix 2a.

(v) the savings of £9.2m and income proposals of £2.7m in 2020/21 set out in Appendix 2b.

(vi) to adopt the key principles set out in section 11.

(vii) to note the £3.4m for Capital Financing included within the pressures figure to invest in proposals to deliver long term benefits to the Council.

3. To approve the Schools Budget for 2020/21 (Section 8.20 and Appendix 5)

4. To approve the changes in Fees and Charges for 2020/21 as set out in Sections 10.20 to 10.44 and Appendices 11 to 13 and delegate authority to Executive Directors and Directors to negotiate discounts where appropriate.

5. To note the gap remaining in the MTFP for 2021/22 to 2024/25 and the actions being taken to address this (Section 14).

6. To approve that the New Homes Bonus funding of £0.646m is applied as a one-off contribution to the General Fund in 2020/21.

7. To approve the planned flexible use of capital receipts in 2019/20 being £3.256m and approve the planned flexible use of capital receipts in 2020/21, being £2.405m (Section 10.45 and Appendix 10).

8. To note the feedback and minutes from the Budget Engagement and Overview and Scrutiny Committee Budget Meeting on 19th December 2019 as set out in Appendices 1a and 1b.

9. With regard to the robustness of the 2020/21 budget and the adequacy of the Council’s earmarked reserves and balances to:

(i) note the risks and uncertainties inherent in the 2020/21 budget and the MTFP (section 11) and agree the actions in hand to mitigate them;

(ii) note the advice of the Executive Director of Resources regarding the recommended levels of contingencies, balances and earmarked reserves (section 13 and Appendix 8a) and have regard to the comments of the Director of Finance (section 17) when making final decisions on the 2020/21 budget; and

(iii) approve the recommended levels of central contingency and general balances (section 13).

10. To note Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 requires any Member who is two months or more in arrears on their Council Tax to declare their position and not to vote on any issue that could affect the calculation of the budget or the Council Tax. Any Member affected by Section 106 who fails to declare this could be subject to prosecution.

In accordance with standing order regulations 2014, the vote was recorded in relation to the decisions in 2.1 (i) (ii), 2.2 (iv) (v) (vi) (vii), 2.4, 2.5, and 2.9

For: 35

Councillor Mahmut Aksanoglu

Councillor Daniel Anderson

Councillor Ian Barnes

Councillor Dinah Barry

Councillor Mahym Bedekova

Councillor Chris Bond

Councillor Sinan Boztas

Councillor Yasemin Brett

Councillor Anne Brown

Councillor Mustafa Cetinkaya

Councillor Catherine Chibah

Councillor Guney Dogan

Councillor Susan Erbil

Councillor Ergin Erbil

Councillor Achilleas Georgiou

Councillor Margaret Greer

Councillor Charith Gunawardena

Councillor Christine Hamilton

Councillor Ahmet Hasan

Councillor Rick Jewell

Councillor Saray Karakus

Councillor Nneka Keazor

Councillor Tim Leaver

Councillor Dino Lemonides

Councillor Derek Levy

Councillor Mary Maguire

Councillor Ayfer Orhan

Councillor Ahmet Oykener

Councillor Sabri Ozaydin

Councillor Vicki Pite

Councillor George Savva

Councillor Claire Stewart

Councillor Doug Taylor

Councillor Mahtab Uddin

Councillor Hass Yusuf

Against: 13

Councillor Maria Alexandrou

Councillor Clare De Silva

Councillor Alessandro Georgiou

Councillor Elaine Hayward

Councillor James Hockney

Councillor Stephanos Ioannou

Councillor Joanne Laban

Councillor Terence Neville

Councillor Lindsay Rawlings

Councillor Michael Rye

Councillor Edward Smith

Councillor Jim Steven

Councillor Glynis Vince

The vote recorded in regard to recommendation: 2.2 (i)(ii)(iii), 2.3, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8 and 2.10

For: 49