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Agenda item

Revenue Budget 2019/20 (C3616)

(CSP: BEC, SLE, P&S, HQL, MEC, BEC1, BEC2, SLE1, SLE2, P&S1, HQL1, MEC1)

Purpose: To consider and recommend to Council the 2019/20 Revenue Budget, which proposes a Council Tax requirement of £97.87m requiring a Council Tax increase of 2.99% in 2019/20. The Council Tax increase will raise £2.84m.

The report also proposes the Fees and Charges for 2019/20 as set out in Appendix H and the Parish Expenses as set out in Appendix I and recommends the level of General Reserves as set out in Appendix F and Appendix G.

Decision:

Resolved to recommend that Council approves:

 

1.    The 2019/20 Council Tax requirement of £97.87million, requiring a Council Tax increase of 2.99%.

2.    The Fees and Charges as set out in Appendix H and that the appropriate statutory notices be placed where required.

3.    The Parish Expenses of £15,389 as set out in Appendix I.

 

Resolved to recommend that Council acknowledges and notes:

 

4.    The responses received to each of the public facing savings proposals in the public consultation exercise undertaken on the 2019/20 budget.

 

This decision is not subject to call in as:

 

·      the item is due to be referred to Council for final approval.

 

therefore it will be implemented immediately.

Minutes:

The Executive considered a report (Agenda Item 9) concerning the 2019/20 Revenue Budget, which proposed a Council Tax requirement of £97.87m requiring a Council Tax increase of 2.99% in 2019/20. The Council Tax increase would raise £2.84m.

The report also proposed the Fees and Charges for 2019/20 as set out in Appendix H and the Parish Expenses as set out in Appendix I, and recommended the level of General Reserves as set out in Appendices F and G.

Councillor Graham Jones highlighted the fact that the supporting information for the Revenue Budget report needed to be finessed. Therefore, minor changes would be made to the papers ahead of their consideration at Council on 5 March 2019.

Councillor Jeff Brooks queried whether any contingency had been set aside or was being considered as part of the Revenue Budget and/or MTFS to cover a potential negative impact from Brexit. Councillor Graham Jones confirmed that a contingency sum had been made available.

RESOLVED to recommend that Council:

(1)     approve the 2019/20 Council Tax requirement of £97.87million, requiring a Council Tax increase of 2.99%;

(2)     approve the Fees and Charges as set out in Appendix H and that the appropriate statutory notices be placed where required.

(3)     approve the Parish Expenses of £15,389 as set out in Appendix I.

(4)     acknowledge and note the responses received to each of the public facing savings proposals in the public consultation exercise undertaken on the 2019/20 budget.

Other options considered: The proposal was to increase Council Tax by 2.99%. If the Council Tax was not increased the savings requirement would be £2.84m higher. Each 1% increase in Council Tax raised £950k. All available options had been considered before recommending that Council increase Council Tax for 2019/20.

Supporting documents: