The Chairman welcomed Members and officers to the meeting which was reconvened following the Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 26 January 2022.

Reconvened Meeting

This meeting will consider the Medium Term Financial Plan and 2022-23 Budget from the Scrutiny Committee meeting which was adjourned on Wednesday 26 January 2022.

The Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance introduced the report which set-out the draft 2022/23 revenue and capital budgets and the draft Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP).  He explained that the report was the same one that had been presented to Cabinet on 8 December 2021, with some updates and said the Council had to agree a balanced budget.  The Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance reminded Members that in July 2021, the Council was looking at a shortfall between revenue and expenditure of £3.7million.  There had been a strategy to achieve administrative savings and increases to fees and charges were required and any shortfall would be met by reserves, the amount dependent on the financial settlement from Government.  The Local Government Finance Settlement 2022/23 was issued in December 2021.  The Government settlement included an additional £984,000 in grants which meant the figure of £2.3 million, set-out on page 87 in Appendix I of the report, on the 26 January 2022 agenda pack, had now reduced to £1.6 million of funding required from the budget reserve fund.  The Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance highlighted environment and leisure as being one of the services under cost pressures, and that corporate overheads/capital financing had gone up by over £0.5 million.  He referred to the continuing costs due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and said that other Local Authorities were in the same position as Swale Borough Council (SBC) and had to use their reserve funds.

The Chairman drew Members’ attention to the summary note on page 105 of the report and thanked the Director of Resources for the update.

The Chairman invited Members to give general comments and ask questions on the report.

In response to a question, the Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance explained that all Local Authorities were finding it difficult to balance their budget and were using their reserves.  He gave some examples of other Authorities that had either a smaller or greater gap in their budget than SBC.  A Member asked whether the Council had sufficient funds to off-set inflation increases.  The Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance explained that out of the £984,000 from Government, £100,000 was allocated to mitigate pressures from inflation, and he was confident that this was a sufficient amount to do that.  The Director of Resources responded to a question and explained that the increase of 1.25% in National Insurance contributions was in relation to employer costs (SBC), not employee costs.  She also corrected the Real Living Wage set-out on page 84 of the report, as being £9.90, not £2.90 an hour.  The Director of Resources spoke on the figures within the table on page 84 and explained that there were different indexes because of the way the cost base was made up, and to avoid over or under inflating.

Cabinet Members were invited to introduce their budget variations as Members worked through the document.

Appendix I

A Member raised concern that the budget for planning services was decreasing when planning activities were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 564.

The Meeting was adjourned from 8.17 pm to 8.25 pm.