Meeting documents

Apologies for absence were submitted on behalf of Councillors Ms Bell, Higgins, Mrs Mort, Mrs Noblet and?Rainsbury.

In response to a suggestion from Councillor Foster that dual-hatted parish and town Councillors had a clear conflict of interest in recommendation 6 of item 2 of the Report of the Cabinet (one-off grant to the parish/town councils in 2013/14), Maureen Wood, as the Council?s Monitoring Officer, explained that she had taken legal advice and did not consider that a borough councillor who was also a parish or town councillor had a prejudicial interest in this matter. Councillors living in town/parished areas would benefit from the grant in terms of ensuring that council tax in their areas did not rise and this would be a personal interest but this issue was covered by the dispensation granted by the Standards Committee to all members to allow them to take part and vote on any decisions relating to setting council tax under the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

Councillor Foster said he did not believe that the dispensation granted was created for circumstances of this type and he reserved the right to submit the matter to the Standards Committee.
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The Leader commended the report of the Cabinet meeting held on 6 February 2013. The report was seconded.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:
1) the report of the Cabinet be noted, with the exception of item 2 (Financial Strategy, Budget and Council Tax 2013/14), to be considered as part of the next item (min. no 96 below refers);
2) Corporate Plan and Corporate Risk Register 2013/14
The Corporate Plan and Corporate Risk Register 2013/14 be agreed, subject to the incorporation of the amendments referred to in the report of the Cabinet;
3) Treasury Strategy 2013/14 to 2015/16
(i) The Prudential Indictors for 2013/14 to 2015/16 as set out in the report be approved;
(ii) the Treasury Management Strategy for 2013/14, incorporating the Treasury Prudential Indicators, be approved;
(iii) the Annual Investments Strategy 2013/14 including:
(a) The end to the three month limit on investments which has applied since September 2011;
(b) The limit for each of the part-nationalised banks being increased from ?3.0m to ?5.0m, of which with no more than ?3.0m per bank to be on fixed term deposit at any one time;
be approved.
(iv) The Annual MRP Policy Statement 2013/14 be approved.
(v) The contract with Sector Treasury Services continue for a further year be approved.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources, Councillor S Robinson, presented the report, stating that central government had set local government many challenges over the last decade but that the current administration had met all the challenges head on and he was very proud of the way the Council, its staff and Conservative members had supported the actions taken and worked so hard to ensure the highest standards of service with the minimum of posts lost.

Taken over the four years of the spending review, core funding from central government would have fallen by around ?3million (46%) on a recurring basis. Fortunately this council?s leading administration had foreseen that expenditure would have to fall and had constantly looked ahead to examine potential savings and efficiencies.

He reminded Council that when the 2012/13 budget was set, it had been anticipated that there would need to be a transfer of ?437K from General Reserve in order to balance the budget gap; however, this transfer was not needed and in fact the council was on course to transfer approximately ?242K into reserves due to a combination of non-recurring and recurring items, and also through extra income generated, for example, from planning application fees. This extra resource allowed the council a little more time and space to plan the future carefully.

The council?s financial policies and strategies had received endorsement from the external auditors who believed that the council?s response to the current financial climate and its track record indicated it was well placed to meet the challenges ahead. Savings of ?515K had already been identified, meaning total recurring savings of ?1.1m in two years. Having said that, a figure of ?607K still needed to be transferred from General Reserves. All income and expenditure would continue to be monitored on an ongoing basis and every opportunity would be made to reduce the General Reserve transfer.

Welfare reform meant that forecasting income with any certainty was very difficult and consequently no extra income from either Business Rates Retention or New Homes Bonus in future years had been budgeted for.

Consideration was being given to whether further resources could prove beneficial in some areas of Council services, such as homelessness, by setting aside a reserve from this year?s addition to the General Reserve to assist in bringing sound houses back into occupation, and more details would be brought to Council in due course.

He was pleased to announce a number of very positive measures in the budget, including significant investment in community safety measures, a major new commitment to improving parks and open spaces (?100K per annum for the next four years), regeneration schemes for Longton, Leyland and Penwortham and the freezing of car park charges to help support local businesses.

Despite the cuts in grant and even after further major investment, he was proposing that South Ribble Council Tax should be frozen for 2013/14, meaning that this council had frozen its share of the council tax in three of the last four years.

The budget proposals before Council also set out capital expenditure proposals indicating potential expenditure; as such they could and would be altered if circumstances changed. The main thrust of the proposals for capital expenditure were that such expenditure produced a return or prevented substantial revenue funding having to be found in the future.

The Cabinet Member took the opportunity to thank Garry Barclay, Michael Fisher and Susan Guinness and their teams for their tremendous efforts and the way in which they had dealt with many changes over the past few years. He also thanked Mike Nuttall and the rest of the Senior Management Team, fellow cabinet members and councillors.

He moved the approval of the statutory resolution incorporating the tax relating to the county council, the police authority, the police and crime commissioner, the combined fire authority and, as appropriate, the taxes relating to the parish and town councils in the borough. He also moved the recommendations under item 2 of the Cabinet meeting of 6 February which were deferred from item 3 of the Council agenda (minute 95 refers).

He concluded by announcing that he had carefully considered the implications of the county council?s decision to cut its share of council tax by 2% and had concluded that the reduction should be passed on in full to those most vulnerable in society. As a consequence he was now proposing an additional resolution to those in front of Council this evening, i.e. that the flat rate deduction of ?3.50 per week from working age claimants South Ribble Borough council?s localisation of Council Tax Support Scheme, formally adopted by Council on 23 January and taking effect from 1 April, should be reduced to ?2.95. This equated to a reduction of almost 16% and demonstrated the Conservative administration?s unambiguous commitment to supporting vulnerable people. The revised levy worked out at 41 pence per week for South Ribble Borough Council?s share.

The Leader seconded Councillor S Robinson?s proposition and asked for the vote on this item to be taken as a recorded vote. All members of the Conservative group stood to support this request.

Councillor Foster suggested that Councillor S Robinson?s eloquently delivered proposal contained no substance, with little thought applied to the medium to long term financial predicament the council found itself in and failed to reveal a number of stark facts. Since the Conservative administration commenced in 2007, the budget available to deliver council services had reduced by 11% and the number of employees had reduced by 23%, with front line services inevitably affected. Whenever a vacancy became available it was ?immediately gapped prior to the grim reaper turning up and slashing it from the council?s establishment?. Over the same period council tax had risen by 9.5%, meaning that under the current administration residents were paying more for much less.

The shortfall in funding in the coming years was projected to exceed ?3m which constituted a funding gap of 21%. This was unsustainable and there was no strategy in place to deal with the problem. The Capital Budget was also now being squeezed and the priorities were all wrong. Residents were already suffering enough and the least the Council could do was to maintain its parks and leisure centres to the highest standard.

The government?s rush to introduce the Council Tax Support Scheme had led to a shortfall in parish/town council funding of approximately ?20K for 2013/14 and he questioned whether it was right that this council should be asked to subsidise that shortfall in the form of a one off grant. He acknowledged that the council was being subjected to bad legislation and funding constraints but suggested that the administration had done little to challenge the government?s position, with no Conservative members supporting Labour motions in relation to the Living Wage, Council Tax Benefit reforms or changes to tenancy contracts.

He concluded that the budget was unbalanced, offering nothing to residents and he proposed three amendments on behalf of the Labour group which were intended to offer some support to the local community and to be fair to the whole borough.

Councillor Foster proposed the following amendment to the recommendation for Council Tax Fixing 2013/14:

?That the Council approve the formal Council Tax resolution appended to this report, incorporating the following amendments;
1. That Resolution 6 of item 2 of the Cabinet Report recommending that a one-off grant of ?20,998 be paid to the parish/town councils in 2013/14 only, as detailed in the table on page 15 of this report be deleted and that Appendix A, B and C of the report be amended to reflect the change necessary to the parish precepts to be collected via Council Tax.
2. The Capital Programme, as set out at Appendix F of the report to Cabinet along with the proposed funding, be amended by 50%, i.e. (?216,000) of the capital budget currently allocated to the Civic Centre being used instead to fund parks and leisure.
3. That ?50,000 be taken from the General Fund Reserve to fund a one year fixed term contract for 2013/14 to assist residents affected by the welfare reform agenda and that Resolution 3 of item 2 of the Cabinet Report forecast residual revenue funding deficit in 2013/14 (?0.607 million) be amended to (?0.636 million).?

In seconding Councillor Foster?s proposed amendment, Councillor M Tomlinson expressed his incredulity that the council was proposing to subsidise parish and town councils which stood to lose money due to policy changes imposed by central government. Surely this was an issue between those councils and central government and not the responsibility of the council tax payers of this borough, especially those living in un-parished areas. He also supported Councillor Foster?s suggestion that dual-hatted members had an interest in this item. He supported the council?s investment in its own assets and its contribution to the local economy but suggested that the Council?s first responsibility lay in investing in its facilities which were most used by residents, such as leisure centres and parks. He had learned that over 650 households in the borough would be affected by the ?bedroom tax? from April, with some seeing their benefits reduced by ?28 per week. Their option, as over-occupiers, was to move into a smaller property with a lower rent. As of 6 March, however, there were only two one bedroom flats available for people under the age of 55 on the Select Move website. He believed that certain elements of central government were so out of touch that they did not realise the level of hardship that would be caused to some local residents, although, having said that, there were others within government who knew exactly what they were doing. Recommendation 3 in the proposed amendment would allow a qualified member of staff to work with affected families to assist in their efforts to find paid employment, to make sure that they were receiving the benefits to which they were entitled and to assist them in finding a house which matched the reduced level of Housing Benefit they were going to receive.

Councillor S Robinson responded to the proposed amendment, saying that the Labour group wanted to hold this administration to account for central government policy. By the time the legislation had been published, the town and parish precepts had already been set and the Cabinet?s recommendation to pay ?20,998 to the town and parish councils was intended to be a one-off grant for this year only. He was confident that the council was doing the best it could with the resources available and he could not support the transfer of ?50,000 from the General Reserve Fund as suggested in Councillor Foster?s recommendation 3 above.

Councillor Foster acknowledged that the local Conservative Group did not set national policy but did in fact support it. He pointed out that the council tax support grant was intended to support the most vulnerable in society, which he did not consider town and parish councils to be, and he looked to Councillor S Robinson to help support the vulnerable in this borough.

A number of opposition members spoke in support of Councillor Foster, pointing out that ?2.95 a week was a lot of money to some people on low incomes and that defaulting on council tax payments had serious repercussions for defaulters. With this in mind each local authority was permitted to make discretionary council tax payments. Last year the cabinet member had indicated that, following a 2.5% rise for 2012/13, a further 2.00% would be required for 2013/14 yet this was not now being proposed. The cost and complexity of recovering arrears meant that it would not be worthwhile to do so until significant arrears had accrued. Propping up the revenue budget by transfers from reserves ultimately left a ?big black hole? in future funding, as had been the case following the previous conservative administration some years ago, when the incoming new administration had been forced to increase council tax to deal with that black hole.

The Leader felt obliged to respond to this last comment, pointing out that between Labour taking over the administration in 1995 and the formation of the three-way Cabinet in 1999, ?6m from the sale of the council?s housing stock had gone and there had been no money left to run the council so it had been necessary to increase council tax. Under the current administration the Council was better run than in the previous 12 years.

Councillor S Robinson reminded the meeting that the grant from government for local authorities which froze council tax in 2012/13 was a one-off grant. This council?s decision not to accept that grant but to increase council tax by 2.5% safeguarded ?200,000 per annum in perpetuity. Government grant had reduced by 46% so there was inevitably a budget gap and things would continue to be kept under constant review.

The Mayor invited Council to vote on the proposed amendment. The vote was lost (YES ? 20, NO ? 30).

YES
Cllr S Bennett, Cllr M A Bradley, Cllr C S Crook, Cllr W Evans, Cllr D B Forrest, Cllr P A Foster, Cllr T G Hanson, Cllr D J Harrison, Cllr F Heyworth, Cllr Mrs S Jones, Cllr J A Kelly, Cllr K J Martin, Cllr J Patten, Cllr Ms S M Prynn, Cllr M J Titherington, Cllr C W Tomlinson, Cllr M V Tomlinson, Cllr Dr S J Tomlinson, Cllr D J Watts, Cllr A E Pimblett

NO
The Mayor, Cllr Mrs A A Ball, Cllr Mrs K Beattie, Cllr W L Bennett, Cllr C Coulton, Cllr Mrs D A Gardner, Cllr M Gardner, Cllr Mrs Mary Green, Cllr Michael Green, Cllr C P Hamman, Cllr J Hesketh, Cllr Mrs J R Hothersall, Cllr J C Hughes, Cllr J D Marsh, Cllr M McNulty, Cllr Mrs C J Moon, Cllr P Mullineaux, Cllr M R Nelson, Cllr G O'Hare, Cllr J W M Otter, Cllr Mrs M J Robinson, Cllr S M Robinson, Cllr Mrs M R Smith, Cllr P J Smith, Cllr P G R Stettner, Cllr D H Suthers, Cllr Miss F A Walker, Cllr J G Walton, Cllr Mrs L R Woollard, Cllr B Yates

The Cabinet Members for Neighbourhoods and Street Scene and Regeneration, Leisure and Healthy Communities expressed their gratitude for the support and investment into areas of their portfolios. This meant that the council was able to maintain its funding towards Police Community Support Officers in the borough, retain and maintain its CCTV coverage, invest in our parks and leisure centres, ensuring that the facilities for residents were getting better every year.

A number of Conservative group members spoke in support of the proposed budget and thanked members of the Cabinet for their team effort and members of staff for their assistance. The external auditors had commented that this council was managing to maintain and improve the services it offered whilst reducing costs. The Labour group had failed to come forward with an alternative budget but it was clear how Labour would run the Council, given that council tax had previously increased by 83% under a Labour leader. The proposed investment in community safety, improvements to the borough?s parks, regeneration and freezing of car parking charges were all to be welcomed. The fact that council tax was not being increased had to be good for residents; services had not declined in recent years in spite of the reduction in funding, and money was being proposed to be taken from reserves because of this reduction in funding.

In response to a member of the public, Councillor S Robinson confirmed that under the Conservative administration there would always be money left ?for a rainy day?.

Before the meeting proceeded to the vote on the substantive motion, the Mayor agreed to a request from Councillor Foster that a separate vote should be taken on the additional resolution to the council tax resolution.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that:
The South Ribble Borough Council?s Localisation of Council Tax Support Scheme, formally adopted by the Council on 23 January 2013 [minute 77] be amended as follows:

That the flat rate reduction of ?3.50 be reduced to ?2.95 per week to be sought from working age claimants and to take effect from 1 April 2013.

The meeting then proceeded to vote on the substantive motion.

RESOLVED (YES ? 30, ABSTENTION ? 3, NO ? 17):

YES
The Mayor, Cllr Mrs A A Ball, Cllr Mrs K Beattie, Cllr W L Bennett, Cllr C Coulton, Cllr Mrs D A Gardner, Cllr M Gardner, Cllr Mrs Mary Green, Cllr Michael Green, Cllr C P Hamman, Cllr J Hesketh, Cllr Mrs J R Hothersall, Cllr J C Hughes, Cllr J D Marsh, Cllr M McNulty, Cllr Mrs C J Moon, Cllr P Mullineaux, Cllr M R Nelson, Cllr G O'Hare, Cllr J W M Otter, Cllr Mrs M J Robinson, Cllr S M Robinson, Cllr Mrs M R Smith, Cllr P J Smith, Cllr P G R Stettner, Cllr D H Suthers, Cllr Miss F A Walker, Cllr J G Walton, Cllr Mrs L R Woollard, Cllr B Yates

ABSTENTION
Cllr D J Harrison, Cllr Ms S M Prynn, Cllr A E Pimblett

NO
Cllr S Bennett, Cllr M A Bradley, Cllr C S Crook, Cllr W Evans, Cllr D B Forrest, Cllr P A Foster, Cllr T G Hanson, Cllr F Heyworth, Cllr Mrs S Jones, Cllr J A Kelly, Cllr K J Martin, Cllr J Patten, Cllr M J Titherington, Cllr C W Tomlinson, Cllr M V Tomlinson, Cllr Dr S J Tomlinson, Cllr D J Watts

1) that with regard to the financial strategy, budget and council tax 2013/14 item deferred from the report of the Cabinet under min no 95 above:-
Revenue Estimates
(i) The Council's projected out-turn estimates for 2012/13, the original estimate for 2013/14 and indicative original estimates for 2014/15 through to 2016/17, summarised at Appendix A to the report be approved.
(ii) Appendix E and the proposals designed to further improve efficiency / increase income and reduce the forecast budget deficit be approved.
(iii) the forecast residual revenue funding deficit in 2013/14 (?0.607 million) be addressed through making appropriate contributions from the General Fund Reserve, whilst recognising that this figure may need to be revised when the Government announces the final Revenue Support Grant figures for 2013/14 in advance of the Council meeting on 6th March.
(iv) A Borough Council Net Expenditure requirement for 2013/14 (including parish/town council precepts) adequate to support the delivery of the Medium Term Financial Strategy be approved.
(v) The Chief Executive be authorised to deal with all staffing issues arising from the report within the agreed budget and in accordance with the council?s human resources policies, in consultation with the Leader, and in her absence the Deputy Leader, and the Cabinet member with responsibility for Finance and Resources and other relevant Cabinet Members.

Council Tax
(vi) Recognise that the Government?s changes to Council Tax Support will reduce the council tax base for parish/town councils, and that this Government announcement was only made very late in the budget setting process, and agree that a one-off grant in the sum of ?20,998 be paid to the parish/town councils in 2013/14 only, as detailed in the table on page 15 of the report.
(vii) The Borough Council?s Band D equivalent Council Tax for 2013/14 remain at the same level as for 2012/13 being ?208.38. This will entitle the Council to receive an estimated Council Tax Freezing Grant in the sum of ?78,000. This amount will be received in 2013/14 and 2014/15 making a total receipt of ?156,000 over the two years only.
Capital Programme/Budget
(viii) The Capital Programme as set out at Appendix F of the report along with the proposed funding be approved.

2) The formal Council Tax resolution appended to these minutes and the revised budget for 2012/13 and proposed council budget for 2013/14 be approved.