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Agenda and minutes
Venue: Muriel Matters House, Breeds Place, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 3UY
Contact: Coral Harding on 01424 451764 email: charding@hastings.gov.uk
Items No. Item Apologies for Absence
Minutes:
Apologies were received for Councillors Charman and Cox. Councillor Levane substituted for Councillor Cox.
Declarations of Interest
Minutes:
The following Councillors declared an interest:
Councillor
Minute
Interest
Webb
· 44, Consultation on the Revenue Budget 2018/19 revised 2019/20, plus Capital Programme 2019/20-2021/22
· 45, Draft Corporate plan 2019/20
Personal- he is a councillor at East Sussex County Council
Rankin
· 44, Consultation on the Revenue Budget 2018/19 revised 2019/20, plus Capital Programme 2019/20-2021/22
· 45, Draft Corporate plan 2019/20
Personal- he operates a commercial property business
Additional documents:
Draft Corporate Plan 2019/20 PDF 61 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
With the committees agreement agenda items ‘Consultation on the Revenue Budget 2018/19 revised and 2019/20, plus Capital Programme 2019/20- 2021-22’ and ‘Draft Corporate Plan 2019/20’ were taken together.
Cllr Peter Chowney gave a presentation for both the Corporate Plan and Budget 2019/20. Currently there is a public consultation running from 11th January 2019- 11th February 2019. As part of that consultation process Overview and Scrutiny Committee are asked for their views and to suggest changes or amendments as appropriate.
The presentation discussed the current position of the council. Currently grant funding has been reduced from £12.7 million in 2010/11 to just £3.4 million this year whilst operational costs rise. The council needs to address a budget deficit of £1.8 million in 2019/20 and £2.5 million in 2020/21.
This year we had a big cut to our government grants, big additional demands on council services such as homelessness, unavoidable costs such as software upgrades, and the early termination of the waste contract. This has led to a budget gap of around £3 million. £1 million in efficiency savings and service cuts plus £1.8 million from reserves have been used to cover this.
The presentation went through budget headlines and examples of spending reductions. In total £1.39 million of savings and £347,000 of growth had been identified. Examples from the presentation included 14.6 full time employment officer posts are redundant but only 1.9 full time employment posts would be subjected to compulsory redundancy. Councillors were keen to support residents living in deprivation and would continue to give 100% support for the most vulnerable households in Council Tax Reduction scheme. Details of the Capital programme for 2019/20 were given which included details about the new street cleansing scheme and commercial property purchases.
The corporate plan was discussed and has been set out in terms of things we have to do (either legally or contractually) and things that we chose to do. The key programmes of the corporate plan were discussed with the Committee. They are;
1. Waste Services
2. Modernisation and Digital Efficiencies
3. Tackling Homelessness and Disadvantage
4. Generating income
5. Tackling Climate Change
6. Physical Regeneration Initiatives
The Committee contributed a range of views, comments and questions on the draft documents following a presentation by Cllr Chowney:
Question: What is the rationale for no longer recruiting an Empty Homes Officer?
Response: The number of long term empty properties has reduced over time.
We still intend to retain our current performance targets. There is scope to increase council tax charges on long term empty properties.
Question: What is the rate of return on housing investment and our future intentions for associated investment via the Housing Company?
Response: A two percent margin is the current predicted rate. Due to not having the right staff in the right place, progress on meeting our associated targets has been slower than intended, but the Leader committed that purchases will ramp up in the future. It was also acknowledged that current work in this ... view the full minutes text for item 45.
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