Issue - decisions

Council received a report that had been considered at Cabinet on 10 October 2016.  The Cabinet minutes were circulated to councillors.  The report asked members to consider whether the council should accept the Government’s offer of a four-year financial settlement and the requirement to publish an Efficiency Plan.

RESOLVED –

1.      that council accepts the Government’s offer of a four-year financial settlement.

2.      that the Efficiency Plan, attached as Appendix 1 to the report, be approved.

Cabinet received a report of the Head of Finance (Shared Services) regarding the decision on whether to accept the Government’s offer.

The Shared Director of Finance explained that there was a four year deal offered by the government for funding until 2019-2020.  The recommendation was that the council accepted the deal.  This was in order to provide some certainty for future funding, and it was unlikely that those that did not accept the deal would gain a better settlement. 

In response to a question from Councillor Taylor, the Shared Director of Finance explained that some councils had not accepted the offer either due to negative revenue support grant or for political reasons.  The vast majority of authorities had or were indicating that they would accept the government’s offer.

The Mayor commented that the report would be going to the Council meeting on the following evening, 11 October.

RESOLVED

That Cabinet recommends to Council that:

1. the offer be accepted

2. if Council accepts the government’s offer then they should also agree and approve the Efficiency Plan at Appendix 1 of the report to allow the four-year settlement to be taken.