Agenda item

1.         That the 2015/16 service strategies that will deliver the Corporate Strategy 2015-20, as set out in Annex 1 to the submitted report, be approved.

2.         That the detailed service revenue and capital budgets for the years 2015/16 and indicative budgets for 2016-20, including amendments resulting from the final Local Government Financial Settlement and other Government funding changes announced since 10 February 2015, as set out in Annex 1 to the submitted report, be approved.

3.         That the match funding of the Brooklands Motor Museum contribution totalling £225,000 over five years, as set out in paragraph 18 of the submitted report, be approved.

4.         That the initiative to increase volunteering from the New Models of Delivery Budget, costing £75,000 in 2015/16 and also in 2016/17, as set out in paragraph 19 of the submitted report, be approved.

5.         That the publication of the service revenue and capital budgets as the Medium Term Financial Plan 2015-20 be approved.

6.         That the fees & charges approved under delegated powers be endorsed and other fee and charge proposals, as set out in Annex 2 of the submitted report, be approved.

7.         That the Equality Impact Assessment of the savings proposals within the directorate and service budgets, as set out in Annex 3 to the submitted report be noted.

 

Reasons for Decisions:

 

The 2015–20 MTFP is a five year budget that is aligned to the Corporate Strategy. It reflects assumptions about the current local and national financial, economic and political environment. The setting of a five year budget is a key element of the Council’s multi-year approach to financial management. Regular reporting through the year will enable progress to be effectively tracked and managed.

 

The Corporate Strategy 2015-20 sets out the Council’s key strategic goals of wellbeing, economic prosperity and residents’ experience. The service strategies provide the detail on the goals and actions to achieve these strategic goals.

 

[The decisions on this item can be called in by the Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee]

The Leader said that in February, the Cabinet had approved the Council’s five year corporate strategy Confident in Surrey’s future and that the overall budget and council tax precept for 2015/16 and indicative budgets for the following four financial years had been set at the full County Council meeting.

 

He said that before Cabinet today was the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) 2015 – 2020, which set out the detailed service strategies that would deliver the overall corporate strategy, together with the detailed revenue and capital budgets for 2015/16 and indicative budgets for 2016/17 to 2019/20. These budgets included fees and charges, grant changes in the Final Local Government Settlement and the Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) of the savings proposals.

 

He also confirmed that the Council’s strategy was focused on working in the long-term interests of Surrey and making sure residents remained healthy, safe and confident about their future and that the Council would concentrate on providing lasting support to those who needed it, supporting economic growth and ensuring residents get excellent, value for money services.

 

He was delighted to inform the Cabinet that savings of over £257m had been made in the past four years, and that the Council was forecast to make over £73m this year. 

 

Finally, he said that the corporate goals would be achieved even though the Council faced huge financial pressures – in particular, rising demand for school places and adult social care and this would be achieved by:

 

·      continuing to find new ways of doing things better,

·      continuing to work with others to transform services and

·      continuing to seek more devolved funding and powers.

The Leader of the Council invited each Cabinet Member to comment on the MTFP and the accompanying EIAs for their portfolios. They made the following points:

 

(i)  Deputy Leader: He highlighted the four savings proposals that had been identified as requiring an EIA in the Chief Executive’s service:

·         the cross cutting communications review

·         re-structure of libraries’ staff

·         reduction in the contingency budget for by-elections

·         5% reduction in the Policy and Performance Service

 

(ii) Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Flooding made the following points:

·         That Highways had a good year, helped by the clement winter weather

·         The aims and objectives for this service remained the same as last year, namely to keep Surrey’s road network safe - Project Horizon was helping to deliver this objective

·         Continued support for economic prosperity for residents and businesses

·         That pro-active partnerships in Surrey were excellent

·         Thanked officers for achieving financial savings in what had been a difficult year

·         That EIAs had been undertaken for those confirmed savings that had been deemed as requiring one

 

Mr Harmer, Chairman of the Environment and Transport Select Committee had asked to speak on this item and said that his select committee had undertaken a detailed review of this service’s budget. It was his opinion that £200K could be transferred from the streetlighting budget into winter maintenance, to create a ‘reserve’ pot of funding for severe weather emergencies. He also suggested that the process of involving select committees in budget scrutiny could be improved by reducing the number of briefings and having more confidential detailed analysis of the budgets following the February Council Budget meeting.

 

On the proposed virement of part of the streetlighting budget, the Cabinet Member’s response was that it would either be considered alongside the carry forward requests – to be considered by Cabinet in April or at the MTFP refresh in July.

 

The Leader of the Council said that he always encouraged select committee chairmen to challenge the budget process. However, he considered that Member briefings were important to clarify the Council’s direction of travel and could be used to form a basis to challenge the budget proposals in detail.

 

(iii)  Cabinet Member for Environment and Planning drew attention to the following:

 

·         The EIAs for this service: (i) Kerbside Improvement Programme, (ii) Environment and Infrastructure – future staff restructure, and (iii)  joint healthcare waste collection and disposal contract

·         Thanked officers for the excellent work undertaken this year

·         Highlighted working with Surrey’s 11 Boroughs and Districts on the Local Plans and strategic infrastructure

·         Stated that by working with partners, one of the key goals would be to reduce household waste costs, develop waste processing and commence construction of the Eco park

·         To achieve financial savings of £6.4m, including £2m savings from the Local Transport Review

 

(iv) Cabinet Member for Children and Families said that:

·         Within the Children, Schools and Families Directorate, there were 7 savings proposals for 2015/16, of which 2 required EIAs: (i) Services for Young People, and (ii) ESG reduction and contract reduction

·         Of the £96m gross revenue expenditure for 2015/16, £42.9m was allocated for Looked After Children and £22.5m for referral, assessment and care management

·         Safeguarding continued to be a key priority for the service

·         Support for the Early Help approach was crucial to the prevent escalation of need

·         Increased number of children were on Child Protection Plans and also there were increasing numbers of young people with multiple complex needs

·         There was work to extend the number of foster placements within Surrey, thereby minimising placing children in out of county foster care

 

(v) Cabinet Associate for Adult Social Care (in the absence of the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care) made these points:

·           That there were significant financial challenges for this service to achieve but that he was satisfied that the MTFP provided a sensible base to take those challenges forward

·           The Council had received additional Government funding to help with the implementation of the Care Act. However, it was unlikely that the changes would be fully funded by Government

·           Adult Social Care had met most of its savings targets. However, going forward achievement of further savings would require collaboration with Health partners

·           The Directorate had identified 27 planned savings for 2015/16 – these had been grouped into five themes and an EIA had been undertaken for each of the themes

·           Finally, he thanked staff in the service for meeting the financial challenges

 

(vi)  Cabinet Associate for Children, Schools and Families said:

 

·         That one of the key actions for Services for Young People in 2015/16 was to create opportunities for all 16/17 year olds in Surrey to participate in education, training or employment

·         Also, the service needed to make savings of £2.6m from its budget in the forthcoming financial year and would adopt a business development strategy to help achieve the savings. An EIA had been completed, which set out nine points on how the savings would be achieved. It also included an action plan, which set out the action needed to maximise positive impact or mitigate any negative impact

 

(vii)  Cabinet Member for Schools and Learning said that there were five key actions for 2015/16, which would support the Council’s three corporate strategy goals:

 

·         To deliver of £2.7m of savings from the Early Years budget

·         To continue to work with Property and Planning to deliver an additional 2800 school places for September 2015 and that, despite receiving additional funding from Government, the Council was still expecting that there would be a funding shortfall for this provision

·         To improve the educational outcomes for Surrey children – she reported that excellent progress had been made in the last few months

·         To implement a special educational needs and disabilities strategy and action plan, which it was hoped would reduce costs by £4m by the end of 2015/16

·         To improve educational outcomes for vulnerable groups

·         Finally, she said that the Council would also be looking at possible savings within the Home to School Transport budget.

(viii) Cabinet Member for Community Services made these points:

·         The aim of this service was to provide a range of relevant services which were needed by Surrey residents

·         Within Culture Services, savings may be generated by staffing re-structures - there would be a consultation period during the summer, with a report in January 2016 detailing options

·         That she was pleased to report the new joint arrangements with Buckinghamshire County Council re. the Trading Standards Services and the new joint committee would meet for the first time on 1 April 2015

·         That the new Coroner’s Court in Woking was operational and it was hoped that it could also be used to generate income for the County

·         This year, the service was involved, in conjunction with the National Trust, with the Magna Carta anniversary programme

·         Two savings proposals, within Customer and Communities Directorate had been identified as requiring an EIA. These were: (i) the reduction in Directorate Support staff and (ii) the removal of Local Committee Capital Allocations. The EIAs had been completed and had set out the challenges and mitigating action required.

 

(ix)  Cabinet Associate for Fire and Police Services said:

·         That none of the five separate initiatives put forward to deliver savings in 2015/16 required EIAs because they were continuation of previous identified savings

 

·         She highlighted the excellent preventative work that Surrey Fire and Rescue (SF&R) was doing to keep Surrey’s residents safe

 

·         That the Public Safety Plan would be refreshed and would be considered and approved by Cabinet by April 2016

 

(x)  Cabinet Member for Public Health and Health and Wellbeing Board made these points:

·         There had been a large increase in the Public Health Budget this year, due to the County Council taking over responsibility for the 0-5 programme from the NHS this year

·         Congratulated Health staff for the successful integration into working within the County Council

·         That the Council had inherited contracts which needed to be re-tendered later this year and it was hoped that savings and better Value for Money could be achieved

(xi)  Cabinet Member for Business Services drew attention to:

 

·         Table 2 in the covering report, which set out the numbers of Full time equivalent (FTE) staff in Surrey

·         Highlighted the challenges for the Finance Service in 2015/16, including the lack of a Comprehensive Spending Review beyond 2015/16

·         Within HR, she said that the service would be reviewing the way that the Council paid and rewarded staff to support attraction and retention of talent

·         That the key action in IMT was to deliver the IMT infrastructure to ensure that the Council’s local and regional partnerships worked successfully to deliver efficiencies

·         Key actions for other services included: (i) the launch of a new shared legal service across Surrey and East Sussex County Councils, (ii) fighting fraud and error to deliver financial benefits and to ensure that there was correct use of public money, (iii) delivery of school places

 

Drawing the discussion on the MTFP for 2015 – 2020 to a conclusion, the Leader of the Council drew attention to Table 3 in the covering report and said that 40% of the Council’s capital expenditure in 2015/16 had been allocated to Schools Basic Need.  He also considered that the inclusion of Table 2, the FTE numbers had been helpful and also drew attention to the paragraphs in the report relating to Treasury Management.

 

Finally, before asking Cabinet to vote on the recommendations, he referred to recommendation (3) and informed Members that by providing this funding for Brooklands Motor Museum, it had helped the museum to secure a £4.7m Heritage Lottery Grant.

 

RESOLVED:

 

1.         That the 2015/16 service strategies that will deliver the Corporate Strategy 2015-20, as set out in Annex 1 to the submitted report, be approved.

2.         That the detailed service revenue and capital budgets for the years 2015/16 and indicative budgets for 2016-20, including amendments resulting from the final Local Government Financial Settlement and other Government funding changes announced since 10 February 2015, as set out in Annex 1 to the submitted report, be approved.

3.         That the match funding of the Brooklands Motor Museum contribution totalling £225,000 over five years, as set out in paragraph 18 of the submitted report, be approved.

4.         That the initiative to increase volunteering from the New Models of Delivery Budget, costing £75,000 in 2015/16 and also in 2016/17, as set out in paragraph 19 of the submitted report, be approved.

5.         That the publication of the service revenue and capital budgets as the Medium Term Financial Plan 2015-20 be approved.

6.         That the fees & charges approved under delegated powers be endorsed and other fee and charge proposals, as set out in Annex 2 of the submitted report, be approved.

7.         That the Equality Impact Assessment of the savings proposals within the directorate and service budgets, as set out in Annex 3 to the submitted report be noted.

 

Reasons for Decisions:

 

The 2015–20 MTFP is a five year budget that is aligned to the Corporate Strategy. It reflects assumptions about the current local and national financial, economic and political environment. The setting of a five year budget is a key element of the Council’s multi-year approach to financial management. Regular reporting through the year will enable progress to be effectively tracked and managed.

 

The Corporate Strategy 2015-20 sets out the Council’s key strategic goals of wellbeing, economic prosperity and residents’ experience. The service strategies provide the detail on the goals and actions to achieve these strategic goals.