The Chair thanked Councillor Blake; Councillor Hassell; Councillor Ronald; Kevin Bartle; Denise Radley; Ann Sutcliffe; James Thomas for attending tonight’s meeting and for the information that they had provided which would help to inform further discussions by the Committee.

Arising from the discussions on the presentations the Committee noted the following key issues that had arisen:

v  The main theme of discussions had been on the reserves policy and the interplay between government grants; the reserve policy and the associated risks.

v  To consider better ways of comparing rises in fees and charges e.g. market pitches, parking, and the community facilities.

v  Is the Council putting in place an infrastructure to ensure that they are ready for the impacts of Covid to address the economic shock e.g. on the Housing Capital Programme, Homelessness and Housing Options Services.

v  Ideally the report should provide the actuals from last year to compare to the budget going forward and that is not in the report and it is considered best practice for scrutiny to consider the actuals as part of any budget scrutiny. Whilst difficult for the current year it should be possible for previous years to do such a comparison. If not at the directorate level, then it should be still possible to do that on a wider level.

v  Scrutiny should have access assumptions that upon which a budget for each department is agreed.  Therefore, going forward, it would be helpful to have a sense of what the capacity is within service areas to understand any risks associated with the savings being put forward.

v  Felt that arguments that have put forward regarding the anticipated income not to be very to be very persuasive regarding especially with reference to (i) New Homes Bonus; (ii) Council Tax Support Grant and (iii) the Social and Care Grant.

v  Budget setting should include context and does not have departmental budgets, elements of the budget are drawn out which are subject to growth/savings and it makes it difficult to piece together.

v  Flagged up from their briefing on Covid-19 funding that would look to cover the costs incurred to the Council and felt that more clarity is required on this.

v  Wished to know where the overspend in the Temporary Accommodation Subsidy has come from and some of the specifics there about the assumed level of Housing Benefit Subsidy

v  On markets the fees and charges 195% increase, charging £1K per year just for a Saturday pitch let alone what they would pay Monday to Friday is completely counterproductive and that this should be reviewed.

v  Need to consider the risks outlined Treasury Management Report that goes before the Audit Committee at that provides an outline of the risk’s element (including the housing revenue account) and will inform the Committee of the timeline that we are working towards.

v  Need a better understanding the reverberations of the pandemic going forward with reference on the use of the Councils Reserves e.g. The Council needs to maintain the reserves to be flexible enough to support those residents in greatest need.

v  Committee discussions will form the basis of the scrutiny report which will be sent to the Mayor outlining scrutiny recommendations on the budget proposals and the Committee will look to agree and finalise the scrutiny report at the next Scrutiny Committee meeting on 25^th January 2021.