Agenda item

To consider the Cabinet recommendation to update and re-position the current adopted Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS).

Councillor Boden presented the report to members and stated that the purpose of the Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) is to set a high-level overview of the direction of travel, giving a consistent view as to what is perceived to be likely to happen based on certain assumptions. He stated that MTFS have always provided a challenge for local authorities and every single local authority has a MTFS which shows a position where there is going to be a deficit at some stage in the next 5 years and the Council’s challenge and the challenge of officers is to manage to meet that gap, having not just met that gap in the last 10 and more years but exceeded it.

Councillor Boden reminded members that 4 years ago he proposed a change to the MTFS and what he suggested was, to give greater challenge to officers and members to ensure the available resources were managed properly, the assumption about Council Tax would be changed as previously the assumption had been that every year it would be increased by the maximum amount that was legally permissible and it was agreed that it be assumed for the purposes of the MTFS that there would be a 0% increase in each of the following 4 years, which at the time was commented as being totally unrealistic and unachievable but it was achieved and over achieved by £1.8 million, which is now in the budget equalisation reserve. He stated that he is proposing today to tighten that to increase the challenge slightly more so instead of assuming there will be a 0% Council Tax increase for the next 4 years that the total funding from Council Tax will be assumed to remain static each year for the next 4 years, which is not the same thing as it fails to take into account the expected increase in the Council Tax base.

Councillor Boden acknowledged that it makes it more challenging, it increases the potential deficit but it has been managed in the past and he has a great deal of confidence that it will be managed in the future. He made the point that if there is a need to go back on this because of circumstances then this can happen but he is trying to increase the targets and quoted from Michelangelo “the greater danger for most of us lies in not setting our aim too high and falling short but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark” and he does not want to just achieve the mark but set the aim high.

Members made comments as follows:

·       Councillor Tierney stated that he has expressed previously how much he supports this policy and its direction. He thanked officers who have worked so hard to deliver these priorities but he feels something extraordinary is happening here in Fenland and what is different is in some other councils around the country they nod through endless Council Tax rises on the proviso that there is no other way, that it is unaffordable and you cannot continue to deliver good services without rising Council Tax but this Council does not take this view, this is a difficult time for people and it is appreciated that every penny added to the Council Tax hits people in the pocket and some people are just barely managing so for the last 4 years the Council has said what it said it was going to do, freezing Council Tax every year and in the final year it was cut, with the intention to try to do the same in the next 4 years. Councillor Tierney expressed the view that there are no other local authorities doing what Fenland is doing and feels this is real leadership but also without massive cuts to Council services, just reorganisation, transformation and old-fashioned hard work, being proud of what Fenland is doing.

·       Councillor Booth stated that he applauds what is trying to be achieved and it is very interesting the approach that Councillor Boden is proposing. He proposed something similar in that there should be a flat net service expenditure so the budgets were not increased, which he has said for many years and whilst it would not have quite the same effect it would mean that there would be the same budgets every year without having to increase it automatically but he was told that this would be illegal in some instances but he does not believe it would have been, it would have just been setting a policy to not increase the budget and it needs to be adhered to much like the commercial industry has to do. Councillor Booth stated that he agreed with what is being proposed but he does not agree that the services are great, such as the example with Planning where performance is not doing very well on the minor applications and the number of complaints he receives about how long people have to wait on the phone before they speak to someone, with their being much more to do to improve the service for the ordinary people of this District.

·       Councillor Hoy stated that she would implore the Lib Dems here to express their views to their colleagues at County because last year they put the Council Tax up by the maximum amount possible and she imagines they will do the same again this year, with the County making up the largest share of the Council Tax so sometimes it feels whatever this Council does is a ‘drop in the ocean’.

·       Councillor Connor stated that he does not agree with Councillor Booth’s comments regarding Planning as members have just heard from Councillor Mrs Laws and there has been a massive spike in planning applications in the last two or three years and everything possible is being undertaken to recruit new staff, having to employ agency staff in the meantime.

·       Councillor Booth made the point that he is just relaying what people are telling him quite regularly.

·       Councillor Miscandlon commended Councillor Tierney for his comments because councils do not have any money, all the money spent is rate payers money but the Council is mandated to spend that money in the most meaningful manner for the benefit of the constituents and he feels with the current strategies that are being taken that is what this Council is doing. He knows that Councillor Boden attended a conference recently and people have asked how this Council is doing it and he thinks that some of those people should be invited to Fenland to see what the Council is doing and what the officers are doing because they are doing a great job of supporting members in getting the message over to the public.  

·       Councillor Boden stated that it is very welcome to see the interest from members on the MTFS and agreed that Councillor Booth has commented about having figures applicated as flat expenditure but ultimately it comes to pretty much the same thing but utilising a different mechanism and, in his opinion, a more difficult mechanism but the end result is the same and he is grateful that they are going in the same direction even if they are slightly different routes to get there. He feels that Councillor Booth is wrong to say there are issues as far as service delivery is concerned as generally there is a great deal of satisfaction within the services the Council provides and ultimately when it comes to maladministration one of the objective criteria is how many complaints have been submitted about Council services to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) and have been found against the Council, the Council will not find out officially until sometime next week what the position is but he is anticipating astonishingly for the fourth year in a row that there will be no complaints raised against the Council to the LGO, which the LGO will have upheld, which to achieve for 4 years means that the Council is certainly not in the worse performing quarter of local authorities in the country. Councillor Boden referred to Councillor Booth mentioning Planning twice at the meeting and stated that he advised, two weeks ago, CMT and the Portfolio Holder that the financial side of things was not the objective here so far as staffing is concerned, there is money set aside and there is money available for those things which are needed and the Council needs to have a better staffing structure and arrangements within Planning but the problem is not finance but availability of staff, with credit paid to officers who have been so careful with the way in which the finances of this Council have been managed over the course of the last few years.

Proposed by Councillor Boden, seconded by Councillor Miscandlon and agreed that the Medium-Term Financial Strategy be re-positioned by keeping the cash amount of Council Tax raised at the current level rather than the previously adopted 0% increase, while recognising that the Council continues to face significant financial challenges and uncertainties that may not allow this ambition to be met.