Medium Term Financial Plan - draft budget update for 2024 / 2025 (00:04:00)
To receive a verbal update on the draft budget position for 2024/2025 (based upon the MTFP budget update report presented to Cabinet on 12 December 2023).
Minutes:
The Group received, and NOTED, a verbal update from the Corporate Manager for Finance, Property and Climate Change regarding the 2024/2025 budget position. This was based on the Medium Term Financial Plan report presented to Cabinet in December and the latest position being presented to the Cabinet on 9th January 2024.
The following summary was provided:
· Savings totalling £1.68544m had been identified as part of the budget setting process during recent months. These had been listed under the RAG rating system so as to identify red, amber and green risks in terms of deliverability and impact on the service.
· It was confirmed that staff savings would only be taken if a post became vacant, redundancies would not be a factor as part of this budget.
· As a result of a great deal of hard work by both staff and Members there was now only a shortfall of £150k as compared to a shortfall in December 2023 of £418k.
· Some of this was due to government announcements in December regarding the local government financial settlement and Council Tax and Business Rate changes.
Discussion took place with regard to:
· Possible income from battery boxes in the future.
· There was some flexibility with regard to purchasing energy in advance.
· Savings with regards to changes in the Leadership Team structure were reflected in the draft budget.
· It was hoped that there would be a new mechanism for local government funding following the General Election as the current system was viewed by many as ‘broken’.
· Mid Devon was in a pool of local authorities for Business Rate purposes. This had benefits in terms of sharing risks and reducing our levy payment of any growth achieved.
· A full condition survey would be undertaken on all Mid Devon assets over the coming 12 months to assess their short term maintenance needs, longer term viability and options to improve carbon neutrality.
The Group wished to express its congratulations and thanks to all members of staff and Members of the Council who had played a part in helping to identify budget savings in order to reduce the shortfall for next year’s budget.