Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Suite, County Hall, Exeter

Contact: Email: charlie.fisher@devon.gov.uk 

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Items
Note No. Item

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186.

Declarations of Interest

Members of the Council will declare any interests they may have in any item to be considered at this meeting, prior to any discussion taking place on that item.

 

The other registrable interests of Councillors of Devon County Council, arising from membership of City, Town or Parish Councils and other Local Authorities will automatically be recorded in the minutes:?pdf icon A list of county councillors who are also district, borough, city, parish or town councillors.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chair reminded Members they should declare any interests they may have in any item to be considered, prior to any discussion taking place on that item.?pdf icon A list of county councillors who are also district, borough, city, parish or town councillors.

 

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187.

Items Requiring Urgent Attention

Items which in the opinion of the Chair should be considered at the meeting as matters of urgency.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

There was no matter raised as a matter of urgency.

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188.

Public Participation

Members of the public may make representations/presentations on any substantive matter listed in the published agenda for this meeting, as set out hereunder, relating to a specific matter or an examination of services or facilities provided or to be provided.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

There were no oral representations from members of the public.

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189.

Budget 2025/26 and Capital Programme for 2025/26 to 2029/30 pdf icon PDF 1 MB

Overall Approach

 

The 2025/26 service area budgets will be scrutinised by the respective Overview and Scrutiny Committees, with the Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Scrutiny Committee considering both its own budget responsibilities as well as any welcomes, concerns and recommendations  raised by the Children’s Scrutiny Committee and the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee and will produce an overarching set of recommendations.

 

This approach enables all Scrutiny Members to question and challenge, as a critical friend, the budget proposals across services to better understand the implications of the budget proposals across the Council and to make effective recommendations to Cabinet and Council.

 

The proceedings of all Scrutiny Committees will be livestreamed, publicised through normal channels, and will be open to the public.

 

The Council must have full regard to and consider the impacts of any proposals, as set out in impact assessments, and any identified risks and mitigating action required.

 

Public Participation

 

There will be an opportunity for members of the public to address each Scrutiny Committee meeting and make oral presentations on any matter relating to the proposed budget, in line with the Public participation at committee meetings.

 

Meeting

 

At this and other Scrutiny Committees in the current cycle, Members are asked to identify salient issues within each Committee’s areas of responsibility, to examine the general thrust of the budget and make recommendations on an overview of priorities and prospects.

 

At this meeting Cabinet Members and Directors will report on

 

  • the Cabinet’s Target Budget for Services and likely implications of the 2025/26 target for individual areas of service and how those areas have been prioritised;

 

  • any comparisons between the current year and next year’s proposals for the service areas, to illustrate the scale of change within those activities and how the budget has been allocated across services in those years (to illustrate changes of emphasis or priority);

 

  • any “alternative delivery models” or other initiatives contemplated for given services and how it is thought that these may reduce costs; and

 

  • impact assessments undertaken in relation to the draft budget.

 

Report and Budget 2025/26 Impact Assessment

 

Joint Report of the Director of Finance and Public Value and Director of Children and Young People’s Futures (DFP/25/03) on the proposed budget for Children’s Services for 2025/26, attached.

 

NB: An overview of the impact assessments for all service areas entitled Budget Impact Assessment 2025-26 has been made available to all Members of the Council so that Scrutiny Committees have access to all assessments undertaken as part of the budget’s preparation.

 

Members are asked to consider the contents and retain it for future meetings, accepting that individual assessments will be updated where necessary before final proposals/decisions at Cabinet and Full Council. Members must have full regard to and consider the impact of any proposals in relation to equalities for this (and other) budget meetings prior to making any decisions/recommendations.  Scrutiny Committees will no doubt wish to be assured that risk assessments and projections are adequate and that the evidence supports the assumptions made in  ...  view the full agenda text for item 189.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Committee noted that the proposed budget for the 2025/26 financial year would be scrutinised by individual Scrutiny Committees.

 

The Chairs of the Children’s Scrutiny Committee and the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee would present an overview of resolutions to the Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Committee.  This Committee would also consider the draft budget proposals within its own remit, providing an opportunity for Scrutiny Members to comment on proposals for the Council’s Budget in its entirety. The resulting resolutions from Scrutiny will be reported to Cabinet and Council.

 

This would follow the opportunity for individual Scrutiny Committees, at this meeting, to have an initial overview of the budget proposals and examine them to identify any specific issues or areas of interest that might be considered at the Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Committee for incorporation into any recommendations to Cabinet and Council.

 

The Committee then considered the joint Report of the Director of Finance and Public Value and the Director for Children and Young People’s Futures (DFP/2503) on the provisional financial settlement made by Government and the spending targets set by the Cabinet for each service area which included inflation, commitments and any savings. The Report also detailed the proposed medium-term capital programme for the Children’s Services and how it was funded.

 

The Cabinet, at its meeting on 8 January 2025, had set Revenue Budget targets for 2025/26. That Report had presented the proposed service budget targets for 2025/26 totalling £784.1 million, a net increase of £44 million or 5.9% compared to the 2024/25 adjusted budget.

 

The preparation of the Budget for 2025/26 recognised that inflationary pressures continued to be felt across the economy, local government and partners. Social care was particularly impacted by increases to the national living wage and the increases to National Insurance. MHCLG was due to provide additional funding towards national insurance costs for local authorities own employees but details are yet to be confirmed. Within the Target Budgets for services it was proposed to allow for £14.2 million for inflationary pressures. The Target Budgets for services reflected an estimated inflationary pressure of £17.7 million due to National Living Wage impacts.

 

To enable the authority to set a balanced budget, savings, alternative funding and additional income of £21.7 million had been identified. Overall, there was additional funding of £44 million or 5.9% for services next year.

 

It was not currently planned to support the proposed budget targets by using general reserve balances, reflecting a strategy of ‘living within our means’.

 

The Capital Programme for 2025/26 to 2029/30 would be presented to Cabinet at the February Budget meeting.

 

 

 

The new Government’s first Autumn Statement was published on 30 October 2024 and the Local Government Finance Policy Statement was published on 28 November 2024. Of particular importance was the Government’s plans to repurpose existing funding, for the extra costs of delivering services in rural areas, to support a change in funding distribution based on deprivation as a proxy for need. This resulted in the discontinuation of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 189.