To receive a presentation from the Cabinet Member for Finance regarding his Cabinet Portfolio
Minutes:
The Cabinet Member for Finance gave a presentation relating to his Portfolio. The Presentation is now attached to the agenda.
The finance portfolio underpinned, facilitated and supported the delivery of all Council Services.
Every decision the Council made, or initiative it sought, had a financial implication that needed to be understood and managed, in addition to this and more specifically the portfolio responsibilities included:
· Revenue and Budget Development for the General Fund and Housing Revenue Account
· Budget Monitoring and in year Virements
· Medium Term Financial Strategy
· Treasury Management
· Capital Programme Planning
· Annual Report and Accounts
· Internal and External Audit
· Council Tax, Revenue and Benefits
· Car Parking
· External Company Liaison with 3 Rivers Developments Limited
The Cabinet Member for Finance highlighted the following:
· The good number of financial achievements and outcomes delivered by the Council.
· Balancing the budget.
· The closure of 3 Rivers.
· Reducing the level of subsidy to our excellent 3 leisure centres.
· The 2024/25 budget was set without any utilisation of reserves (and with only a 2.99% increase in Mid Devon District Council’s share of the Council Tax).
· All 3 Rivers assets had either been sold or transferred back into Council ownership, and the annual budget for leisure had been reduced by over £400k, without any reduction in service and coupled with a decarbonisation investment of around £3.5m.
· Collection rates of 97.5% for Council Tax, 99.4% for business rates and 98.9% for corporate debt recovery.
· Housing Benefit (HB) / Council Tax reduction – Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) see the Council as upper quartile in processing of claims and general checking that is required, HB subsidy had seen a positive increase of c£33k.
· The Council had processed Household Support Fund payments of over £413,000 to help 1,253 households.
· Delivered the co-location of Devon County Council at Phoenix House, saving costs and realising additional revenue.
· The Council were about to complete on a land sale that would unlock the delivery of 70 affordable homes.
· Recently the Council held an evening with all of the Town/Parish Councils to promote better partnership working – which was a great success, and covered cost saving and shared costs.
· Introduction of a Council Tax exemption for Care Leavers and agreed a higher charge for second home owners that would be effective from April 2025.
· The Council continued to make bids to Government for further decarbonisation projects with successful outcomes.
· Maximised the deployment of “Right To Buy” funds to secure more housing and ensure none is returned to Government.
· Reduced the costs of senior management by over £100k.
· The Council continued to benefit from partnership arrangements in Building Control, Procurement and Business Rates.
· Bucking national trends by maintaining virtually full occupation rates across their retail and commercial portfolio.
· The Council earned around £2.4m from their treasury activities in 2023/24.
· The Finance Team continued to provide regular financial information to Council meetings.
· Creation of a new performance/risk monitoring dashboard for a number of Council meetings, these allowed Councillors to have relevant and accurate financial information to support their sound decision making.
· The Council had new external auditors and were seeking to appoint an independent person to the Audit Committee, to further reinforce their already robust audit processes.
As far as the overall outturn position for 2023/24 was concerned the Finance Team were still pulling all of this together.
Initial indications were that the Council’s General Fund balance would be restored to an acceptable level whilst maintaining high levels of service provision and ensuring they had sufficient financial balances and ear marked reserves to provide for long term funding commitments.
The Cabinet Member for Finance was already deep in discussion with senior officers about the shape and scope of the 2025/26 budget, and as part of their Medium Term Financial Plan forecasting. They would be estimating the financial context that would impact future budgets and how they would align to the delivery of the Council’s new Corporate Plan.
The Cabinet Member was keen for the whole Council to be involved in the budget setting 2025-26 and the development of the Medium Term Financial Strategy and the Scrutiny Committee, along with the Policy Development Groups would be fully involved at every stage.
The Cabinet Member for Finance thanked all of the officers who had delivered such a great number of these achievements over the past 12 months and looked forward in continuing to work closely with them in order to navigate the Council through the next set of challenges and opportunities.
The Cabinet Member invited feedback from the Scrutiny Committee, and the wider membership, on both what the Council does well and what they could do better. Additionally feedback would be particularly welcome around reporting, did the Council provide the right information, at the right time and was there anything else Councillors would like to see? With regard to the budget setting process, how could they improve on last year?
The Committee NOTED this presentation.
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