Agenda item

1.  That the draft budget proposals for 2024/25 be agreed as the basis for consultation with the Corporate Improvement Scrutiny Committee and other interested parties.

2.  That the draft Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2024/25 to 2027/28 be agreed as the basis for consultation with the Corporate Improvement Scrutiny Committee and other interested parties.

3.  That the Council Tax Base be set at 44,358.44 (Band D equivalents) for 2024/25 as outlined in Appendix C in the supplementary agenda be agreed

4.  Noted that the Council Tax base is broken down as follows between local parishes and the rest of Slough:

The Lead Member for Finance, Council Assets, Procurement and Revenue & Benefits introduced a report that set out the draft revenue budget proposals for 2024/25, the draft Medium Term Finance Strategy (MTFS) for 2024/25 to 2027/28 and the Council Tax base for 2024/25.

A supplementary agenda was considered that included a revised Appendix C and an additional recommendation (d) relating to the Council Tax base breakdown for parishes.  This was noted and agreed.

The budget proposals had been developed following service reviews, savings proposals, assessments of pressures and growth in each directorate and a series of ‘Star Chambers’.  The Cabinet thanked the finance team, executive directors and the finance commissioner for the significant amount of work that had gone in to developing a draft budget and MTFS as a basis for consultation.

It was recognised that the Council remained in a very challenging financial position and there were significant risks that would need to be carefully monitored and managed.  The Local Government Finance Settlement had been published earlier in the day and the finance team would be assessing the impacts of any of the assumptions in the Council’s financial model.  The Lead Member summarised some of the key headlines in the draft budget which included a proposal for a Council Tax rise of 4.99% and additional resources for adult social care, temporary accommodation and customer services.  The draft budget was balanced by utilising one-off smoothing reserves and also required exceptional financial support through the Capitalisation Direction.  The use of one-off resources in the smoothing reserve meant that there was an underlying gap to carry forward to future years and work was taking place to identify further savings which could be delivered on top of those included in the draft budget.

The Leader of the Council updated the Cabinet on a letter he had received from the local government minister, Simon Hoare MP, earlier in the afternoon that stated that Slough, and some of the other councils in receipt of exceptional financial support, were being advised by the Government to set a higher Council Tax than the 4.99% included in the draft budget.  The Government was taking the necessary steps to raise the cap that would normally trigger a local referendum to enable this.  A meeting had been arranged to discuss this matter with the Minister and the Leader highlighted that he would use the opportunity to set out the rationale for the draft budget as proposed with a 4.99% rise.  The issue would then be carefully considered as the budget was finalised in early 2024 prior to consideration by Cabinet in February and Council in early March. 

The Cabinet discussed various aspects of the draft budget, including the additional funding for adult social care, and how the adult social care precept which had by raised in each of the previous years had been used given the apparent funding gap for the service.  At the conclusion of the discussion it was agreed that the draft budget was a sound basis for consultation and the recommendations were agreed.

Resolved –

(a)  That the draft budget proposals for 2024/25 be agreed as the basis for consultation with the Corporate Improvement Scrutiny Committee and other interested parties.

(b)  That the draft Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2024/25 to 2027/28 be agreed as the basis for consultation with the Corporate Improvement Scrutiny Committee and other interested parties.

(c)  That the Council Tax Base be set at 44,358.44 (Band D equivalents) for 2024/25 as outlined in Appendix C in the supplementary agenda be agreed.

(d)  Noted that the Council Tax base is broken down as follows between local parishes and the rest of Slough: