Issue - meetings
Council Budget 2017/18 and Medium Term Financial Strategy 2016/17 - 2020/21
Meeting: 08/12/2016 - Cabinet (Item 71)
71 Medium Term Financial Strategy and Council Tax Budget 2017/18 
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Minutes:
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Councillor Phil Davies, Leader of the Council, said:
“Every year, this Council faces a growing challenge to set a budget which enables us to protect the vulnerable and improve the lives of our residents. To achieve this we have to balance the rising costs and demand for services with the income we raise from Business Rates and Council Tax and the shrinking grants we receive from Central Government.
To deal with these challenges, Councils like Wirral have historically survived by making minor reductions to services, small increases in charges and asking our staff and our partners to do lot more with a lot less. This time, the truth is incremental change will no longer get the job done.
Over the next four years, Wirral Council has to find from increased income or spending reductions £132 million. That’s on top of the huge reductions and cuts we have already had to absorb and includes the requirement to find £45 million just next year.
We have ambitions for Wirral which we will not lower or compromise. We are planning long term, and will design a budget strategy covering the next four years which will allow us to deliver fundamental redesign of how the Council works and the services it provides.
We have spelled out where our priorities lie. The Wirral Plan and our 20 Pledges are our contract with the people of Wirral and we will deliver as promised. In this new age for local government, it is our job to make sure we focus our efforts, our resources and our energy on what is truly important to residents”. |
Councillor Phil Davies introduced a report which informed that, over the next four years, the Council was projecting to have a funding gap of £132 million, due in part to the Government’s austerity measures, rising costs and increasing demand for services.
The Cabinet noted that the report presented a Financial Strategy to enable the Council to set a balanced budget for 2017/18 and provide provisional budgets for the subsequent three years to 2020/21.
Over this period, it was reported that the Council would review every service currently provided, developing a range of new delivery arrangements to ensure the right outcomes were achieved for Wirral residents at a sustainable cost. The Cabinet noted that the Transformation Programme was a critical programme of work, which would take time to deliver but would ensure the organisation was able to keep its promises to residents within much reduced financial resources.
Under the Government’s plans it was noted that local authorities would no longer receive the general Revenue Support Grant and would become largely self-reliant, based on income generated from Council Tax, Business Rates and Fees and charges. A major focus in the Financial Strategy was on generating more income to enable the Wirral Plan to be delivered.
Councillor Davies informed the Cabinet that the challenge was the local tax base, as approximately three quarters of the housing stock in Wirral was in Bands A, ... view the full minutes text for item 71