Agenda item

Included in this agenda is the covering report which will have been considered already at the Cabinet meeting due to be held on 12^th February 2025. As only Appendix A to the report has not previously been considered by Cabinet only the covering report and Appendix A will be made available to discuss at this meeting of Cabinet. The rest of the appendices have not changed and are therefore not due to be debated at this Cabinet meeting.

The Medium-Term Financial Plan - Tranche 2 Budget including Fees and Charges report has been subject to public consultation. Any feedback arising from that consultation process will be presented for Cabinet Members’ consideration at the meeting.

Appendix A to this report will follow in a supplementary pack to this agenda for this meeting.

This report is due to be pre-scrutinised at a meeting of the Finance and Budget Working Group prior to its consideration at this Cabinet meeting. Any recommendations arising from that meeting will be reported for Cabinet’s consideration in a supplementary papers pack.

The Deputy Chief Executive and Section 151 Officer presented the Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP) - Tranche 2 Budget including Fees and Charges (following consultation) report for the consideration of Cabinet.

In doing so, Members were reminded that an updated MTFP had been issued for this meeting as a result of discussions that had taken place at the Overview and Scrutiny Board meeting held on 11^th February 2025 and Cabinet meeting held on 12^th February 2025. There had been some amendments made to the recommendations contained within the Strategic Parking Review report which had resulted in the following:

a)    An additional £85,000 be added to parking budgets, allocated as follows:

i)       Additional funding of £70,000 for increased numbers of Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs)

ii)     £15,000 for maintenance of an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system

b)    £100,000 added to the Capital Budget in 2025/26 for ANPR systems to Recreation Road South, St Johns and Windsor Street car parks

Further amendments to the previous report also reported to members included:

1)    Paragraph 3.19 of the MTFP report was discussed in detail and the wording amended to ensure

·       Schemes were prioritised

·       That General Fund balances did not reduce below £5million.

2)    A risk added to the Risk Section within the report following correspondence from Birmingham City Council regarding access to Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership (GBSLEP) funding during the 2025/26 financial year.

3)    Inclusion of Appendix A to the report which contained draft Departmental Budgets.

4)    Revenue bottom line changed from a £167k deficit to a £252k deficit for 2025 - 2026.

5)    Revenue bottom line changed from a £1,030k deficit to a £1,115k deficit for 2026 – 2027.

6)    Revenue bottom line changed from a £399k deficit to a £484k deficit for 2027 – 2028.

7)    Support from Reserves rose from £1,596k to £1,851k.

8)    General fund balances reduced from £12,781m to £12.526m.

9)    Capital spending in 2025/26 increased from £8.017m to £8.117m.

This updated MTFP report had also been considered at the Finance and Budget Working Group (FBWG) meeting held on 18^th February 2025. The Leader invited Councillor P. McDonald, in his role as Chairman of the FBWG, to inform Members what discussions had taken place during consideration of this report. It was noted that the FBWG Members felt that £1000,000 for an ANPR system was a significant cost. It was also noted that legal work needed to be carried out in respect of installation of ANPR in order to comply with any regulations involved in implementing such a system.

The Chairman of the FBWG also reported that there had been some discussion regarding Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers within the District at this meeting. It was noted that the current contract provider and the Council were in a profit share agreement and that profits would not be likely for approximately eight to ten years. Councillor McDonald expressed that after some research he had discovered that there were more beneficial models available when working with EV contractors and that this be looked at by the Council. Members queried the amount of time left on the contract with the current provider and Officers undertook to provide this information and to ascertain whether there were any ‘break’ clauses contained within the current contract.

As this seemed to be an area of interest for Members it was suggested that the Overview and Scrutiny Board scrutinise EV chargers in further detail. The Chairman of the Board agreed and undertook to make the necessary arrangements in order for the Board to consider this at a future meeting.

As discussed earlier at this meeting, Members recommended that the £40,000 funding allocated to the Poverty Truth Commission be removed from the MTFP.

Therefore, it was

RESOLVED that

1)    Members understand and accept the implications set out in the Section151 Officer’s Robustness (Section 25) Statement of this 2025/26 to 2027/28 Medium Term Financial Plan in moving the Council to financial sustainability.

2)    The need for accelerated business cases to be worked up to enable upgrades of infrastructure to the District for consideration in line with work set out in paragraph 3.19 of the Appendix for completion prior to vesting day.

RECOMMENDED that

1)    The updated MTFP following discussions at Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 11^th February and amendments agreed at Cabinet on 12^th February, as detailed in the Cabinet minute 69/24, is approved.

2)    Subject to incorporating the changes detailed in recommendation 1 above, the MTFP Recommendations made in the report to Cabinet on 12^th February are approved.

3)    The funding of £40,000 from Reserves allocated to the Poverty Truth Commission project be removed from the Medium-Term Financial Plan.