The Medium-term Financial Strategy reviews the council’s financial position since its budget was set in February. It describes the savings needed, where the council will look for those savings and new issues emerging that need to be considered in preparing a budget for 2017-18.
This year the report includes an Efficiency Plan which brings together the actions which will enable the council to have the resources to maintain services. The plan outlines how the council will become even more productive and less reliant on external funding, including putting resources to work that were previously going to waste.
To this end, the Medium-term Financial Strategy proposes a new acquisition programme for commercial property, funded by £20million of cash resources. This will mean that the council has redirected more than £50millon of its resources in the last two years to produce income and protect services.
The government’s autumn statement is expected in late November with the provisional finance settlement for councils due in December. The financial strategy sets out how the council must save £2.2million by 2022 from its annual net budget of approximately £20million.
These savings will be achieved from a number of initiatives including:
- Reviewing the way services are organised and delivered, protecting the core services residents need;
- Investing in technology to improve productivity and reduce costs;
- Reviewing use of council buildings, moving out of some and making more efficient use of others;
- Investigating ways of sharing the management and running of more services with other councils nearby;
- Challenging the assumptions behind capital expenditure on projects.
Cllr Richard Robertson, Executive Councillor for Finance and Resources, said: “We face a considerable financial challenge for a number of reasons, including diminishing government grant, uncertainty in national financial policy and low interest rates on our savings.
“Together, these make it all the more difficult for us to do the things that we would like. In particular we want to make far better use of the money we have sitting in the bank earning very little. Our new programme of acquiring additional commercial property will put that money to far better use.
“Our strategy is to protect the council’s financial future and the services our residents rely on. We are already transforming our services, providing them in different ways and sharing services in order to become more efficient.
“We will stay focused on taking these initiatives further to make sure we can deliver a balanced budget, manage our finances effectively and keep the need for service cuts to a minimum.
“In doing all of this, we will keep the most vulnerable people in our city, who are in greatest need of our help and support, foremost in our minds.”
Cllr Robertson is recommended to agree the budget strategy, process and timetable set out in the Medium-term Financial Strategy at Strategy and Resources Scrutiny Committee on 10 October.
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