Other Elected Members X Cllr Tandy, Cllr Roodhouse, Cllr Appleton, Cllr
Gittus, Cllr Davis, Cllr Moss - for information
Police ..................................................
FINAL DECISION NO
Recommendation
Cabinet are requested to approve the process and timetable for preparing the 2011/12
Budget, Corporate Business Plan and Medium Term Financial Plan outlined in the
report and shown in Appendix A.
1.2 With all of the work that took place as part of agreeing the 2010/11 Budget and
the 2010-13 Corporate Business Plan, the 2011/12 financial and business
planning process is starting from a much stronger base than has been the
case in recent years. Already in place or under development are:
• A vision for 2013 in the Corporate Business Plan that will provide a more
stable basis for decision-making.
• A Transformation programme and a partial savings plan for the next two
years, and
• Service statements and the cross cutting reports covering all aspects of
service delivery, alongside directorate service plans, providing greater
detail on the service changes expected over the life of the Administration.
1.4 Also, as part of thinking about how to develop the budget alongside the
delivery plan for the 2013 Vision, Cabinet have clearly expressed two aspects
that they would wish to see incorporated into the process:
1.5 The purpose of this report is to seek approval of the proposed approach to
closing the budget gap in future years and developing the Authority’s service
plans in a way that is consistent with the budget decisions.
2 Timescales
2.1 Working backwards, members will take the final decision on the budget and
council tax for 2011/12 at full Council on 15 February 2011. However, allowing
time for consultation and scrutiny will require draft proposals being issued
before Christmas, as in the last two years. The difficulty of the decisions that
are likely to be needed to close the budget gap also suggests a significant
amount of time for internal debate will be needed, prior to going public with
any budget proposals, resulting in a need to push the timetable as far forward
as possible.
2.2 Pushing the other way is the timeframe for the next Comprehensive Spending
Review and announcement of Government grants in the autumn. Detailed
3 Resource Forecasts
3.1 The latest resource forecasts are shown in Table 1 below. These show that
there remains a significant deficit to be closed in each of the next three years,
as has been referred to above.
Savings Savings targets and plans already approved - 7.674 7.884 8.065
Deficit addressed in previous years to - - 14.363 32.285
balance the budget
3.2 As yet there is nothing specific to suggest these forecasts should be updated.
However, in terms of sensitivity:
3.3 In stark terms these figures show the current 3% annual savings target needs
to increase to an average annual savings target of 6% for all services, just to
close the budget gap. To present members with real choices, then potential
savings of, say, £50 million, not the £28 million required to balance the budget,
would need to be identified, equivalent to an average annual target of 10%.
3.5 It has to be recognised at the outset of the process that savings of this level
cannot be delivered by marginal efficiencies. The approval of significant cuts
and potentially the complete withdrawal from some areas of service provision
are likely to be needed.
4 Our Vision
4.1 The Corporate Business Plan 2011-13 and the 2011/12 Budget will be
produced against the Council’s current Vision, priorities and supporting
themes set out below.
Our Vision
Working in Partnership to put Customers First,
Improve Services and Lead Communities
Our priorities
• Raising educational attainment and improving the lives of children, young
people and families
• Maximising independence for older people and people with disabilities
• Developing sustainable places and communities
• Protecting the community and making Warwickshire a safer place to live
Our supporting themes
• Our Customers
• Our Partners
• Our People
• Our Resources
• Our Improvement
• Our Performance
5.2 Development of the Corporate Business Plan will follow the timeframe set out
in Appendix A and be finalised alongside the Budget in February 2011.
6.1 The budget and medium term financial plan put the resources in place which
allow us to move towards the Vision. Four key principles have been central to
the development of the approach to financial planning outlined in the
remainder of this report:
• The need to ensure the process is priority-led and that the priorities on
which the budget and medium term plan are developed are agreed (i.e.
the Vision and CBP),
• The need to ensure that decisions are clearly based on evidence and
that a clear understanding is developed of the implications of the
decisions and any follow-up work required prior to implementation.
6.2 Even more so than in previous years, the key issue for the medium term will
be affordability. There will be continued pressure to deliver better services and
respond to public expectations whilst delivering low tax increases against a
backdrop of increasingly tight grant settlements. The central question remains
– how do we deliver better for less – as closing the budget gap will be
central to our planning over the medium term.
6.3 Overall, the recommended process itself is little changed from last year.
Diagram 1 below outlines the main inputs and outputs from a budget and
financial planning process focussed on affordability.
VISION
Priorities
for
change
Service Reductions
(in light of vision and
priorities) Cuts
Efficiency Programme Directorate
Plan Plans
Budget
6.5 Phase 1
The output from Phase 1 is to achieve a degree of consensus on the priorities
for change and service reductions over the life of the administration. To
facilitate this, a number of pieces of work have already been commissioned:
6.6 The purpose of Phase 1 is to enable early discussions on the areas to pursue,
prior to any detailed work being undertaken, to limit, as far as possible, the
extent of any abortive work.
6.7 The service contribution statements will have been updated, by mid-June, to
be consistent with the CBP and Transformation 2013 and to reflect:
• A working assumption that by 2013/14 services will only have 80% of the
resources they have this year. This is a way of identifying more potential
savings options than are needed to provide members with genuine
choice about the way forward.
6.8 In this Phase, and in the subsequent Phases, it is proposed that initial scrutiny
and validation of the information is undertaken by SDLT. However, at each
Phase, Member involvement is critical if the final outcome is to reflect
Members’ priorities.
6.9 Cabinet are asked to approve the process and timetable for preparing the
2011/12 Budget, Corporate Business Plan and Medium Term Financial Plan
outlined in the report and shown in Appendix A.
Shire Hall
Warwick
3 June 2010
November Phase 3: 2011/12 draft Cabinet agree draft CBP Detailed Service Planning
budget and medium term and key risks Framework distributed to
financial planning proposals Directorates based upon
drawn up for consideration Cabinet affirmation of the
with the wider Group priorities
January Cabinet agrees formal O&S Committee agrees Specific targets for the
budget resolution specific targets for the Directorate Service Plans
CBP agreed
February Council agrees the Budget and CBP (incl. key risks)
April CBP and MTFP published on the WCC website Directorate Service Plans
published on the intranet
and copies placed in Group
Rooms