After two reports covering the finance aspects of the recent Cabinet meeting
we are still only 30 minutes into a close to two hour meeting and there is more finance to come.
The question was, after the last difficult year, how is 2021 doing? The Leader said that it must be
monitored very closely because if the Government funding stops so must the spending.
Finance Director Paul Thorogood said the future and its forecasting was “highly
uncertain”. Government funding is only confirmed for the first quarter, £5
million plus £800,000 in reimbursement for lost fees. It was £33 million for the
whole of last year. Income streams are all well down from pre-Covid levels.
Cabinet Member David Leaf was similarly pessimistic. Uncertainty, a potential £2
million overspend, Covid related variances, the risks associated with Council Tax and Business rate collection
which Councillor Borella had highlighted.
Following the same pattern as before, Cabinet Member Cafer Munur was compelled
to give the same message in a different fashion. He too picked up on Councillor Borella’s fears over Council Tax etc. “We should all be concerned and there is a
long long way to go.” He hoped that more Government money would allow greater business support.
Councillor
Wendy Perfect (Labour, Northumberland Heath) believed that the charges for Adult Social Care did not
reflect costs and were unfair and that the Council agreed with that assessment.
When were they going to be adjusted? She also asked why the Department for
Education was nosing around local schools because the schools grant had proved
insufficient when the reason for it was obvious. The rapid growth of new
education and health plans. The Leader agreed that there were more education and
health care plans and there is a question mark over the level and there is a lot
of work going on looking at ways of keeping expenditure down. The DfE is working their
way around a lot of local authorities.
There had been a complaint about Adult Social Care charging policy and the
Council accepted that it was potentially unfair. The review was delayed by Covid
and the Local
Government Ombudsman subsequently upheld the complaint. The Council wants to
correct charging policy but as yet it is not corrected.
Labour Leader Stefano Borella made several points and was very critical of the
way the recent Budget Scrutiny Committee was run. The webcast failed so it is
difficult to comment on the detail but the grapevine indicates that Stefano is not alone in his view.
He was assured that the Capitalisation Order is only “headroom” and not likely
to be used but an overspend of £2 million was still likely this year despite
£5·2 million of contingency funding being put aside.
The cost base and demand for services are all increasing and opportunities for
increasing income are being examined. There is no good news.
Cabinet Member Leaf defended the Budget Scrutiny meeting processes
because
Councillors were free to question him and officers outside it. Councillor Borella
reminded him that the meeting was supposed to be a public forum. The Leader was
not unsympathetic to that view.
Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) asks housing questions one of
which this time was “isn’t it about time we looked at having our own housing stock?” The
Leader said that would be “a retrograde step”.
Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) said he understood that the
parking contractor was looking at parcel collection lockers in car parks which
might bring in £13,000 per annum. However some have been installed prematurely
without planning permission. Did the subsequent investigation impose a cost on
the planning department? No one knew.
Forty eight more minutes to go.