At the request of the Leader of the Council, the Director of Finance updated the Cabinet on the position regarding the Icelandic Bank and the letting of energy contracts.

The Director of Finance presented the projected budgets for 2009-2011 to coincide with the period of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 (CSR).

The Leader of the Council moved a motion, duly seconded and it was –

Resolved - That

(1)  Cabinet recognises the urgent need to ensure that Council Tax increases are kept as low as possible and therefore recommends the following savings to Council, taking into account items 6 and 25, in order to continue to narrow Wirral’s budget gap and protect Wirral residents from unnecessary financial burdens.

(2)  In order to ensure that the authority treats children of all faiths equally, the Director of Children's Services be asked to carry out a consultation exercise on changing the home to school transport policy with a view to removing the entitlement to free travel for new pupils attending Roman Catholic schools and to report back to Cabinet on the 23rd February 2009; and

(3)  Because it is considered to be in the Council’s best interests to implement proposed savings as early as possible, Cabinet asks Council to approve those items which have not been considered by Scrutiny committees where there is all party support and, in so doing, to suspend paragraph 2(a) of the Budget and Policy Framework Procedure Rulesand to deal with the proposals in accordance with paragraph 2(b), i.e. where there is no such agreement, absence of which should be indicated by the lodging of an objection by 10am on Friday, Council is asked to refer the relevant item to the appropriate Overview and Scrutiny Committee for discussion and subsequent referral to the next Council meeting.