Agenda item

Appendix B of the report will follow.  

The Lead Cabinet Member for Finance presented the General Fund Revenue Budget for 2021/2022. He highlighted and explained the proposed modest increase to Council Tax which would help cover the shortfall in other funding sources and emphasised that South Cambridgeshire District Council’s Council Tax would continue to be in the lowest 25% of all local authorities in the country. He expressed pride at the Revenue and Benefits Team for keeping payment defaults lower than had been expected and thanked council taxpayers for maintaining their payments despite the uncertain economic situation. He informed the committee that the Covid-19 pandemic may have a longer term impact on business rate growth and that it was anticipated that councils would be able to retain fewer business rates and other grants such as New Homes Bonus and Rural Services grants were expected to be phased out. He explained the required savings over the next four years and the implications of the changes to Public Works Loan Board lending terms. Despite this, he informed the committee that the Council was in a sound financial position.

The committee was informed by the Head of Finance and Lead Cabinet Member for Finance that:

·         The operation of the Council’s new electric bin lorry was cost neutral and purchase of this showed in the capital programme.

·         The cost of the investment team was spread across the cost of the investments and it was not anticipated that this would impact on yield from the investments.

·         The loss of investment income to the Council was explained. The investment programme had been affected by the Covid and consequently the Council had not invested as much as had been anticipated.

·         Before any investment was taken forward, due diligence was carried out. There were costs associated with this regardless of whether the investment opportunity was taken forward.

·         The Zero Carbon Fund was funded from the Renewables Fund to which money was being moved. It was up to the Climate and Environment Advisory Committee to consider and recommend to the Lead Cabinet Member for Finance how much should be spent on this going forward. The assumption was that the same amount of funding would be made available for the next financial year as had been made available for the last financial year

·         The Lead Cabinet Member suggested that the Climate and Environment Advisory Committee could look at conservation grants for the 2022/2023 Budget.

The committee discussed a proposed amendment to the Budget from the Labour Group, which was presented by Councillor Gavin Clayton. This proposed a new Welfare-Visiting officer role to support residents to access financial support from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), as well as ensuring available support from the council was accessed. This would enable the Council to support the most vulnerable residents in the community who struggled to access financial support. Committee members indicated their support for this proposal which was accepted by the Lead Cabinet Member for Finance.

The committee also discussed a proposed amendment to the Budget from the Conservative Group, which was presented by Councillor Heather Williams. This proposed the establishment of an extra Planning Enforcement Officer on a permanent contract. This would be funded by reducing the South Cambridgeshire magazine to two issues per year and where more than one Special Responsibility Allowance was paid to a member, in future they received one allowance. Whilst some committee members were concerned about the pressure on the Planning Enforcement team and supported the principle of the proposal for additional Planning Enforcement support, members were reassured that the council had just gone out to recruitment for two Planning Enforcement Officers. Committee members suggested the council should see how the recruitment and subsequent additional resource provided by these posts went before any further positions were created.