Agenda and draft minutes

Venue: By Zoom. View directions

Contact: Wyn Richards, Scrutiny Manager and Head of Democratic Services 

Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies

To receive apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from County Councillors K Roberts-Jones, E Roderick and T Van-Rees.

2.

Disclosures of interest

To receive any disclosures of interest by Members relating to items to be considered at the meeting.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest from Members relating to items for consideration on the agenda.

3.

Declarations of Party Whip

To receive disclosures of prohibited party whips which a Member has been given in relation to the meeting in accordance with Section 78(3) of the Local Government Measure 2011.

 

(NB: Members are reminded that under Section 78 Members having been given a prohibited party whip cannot vote on a matter before the Committee.)

Minutes:

The Committee did not receive any disclosures of prohibited party whips which a Member has been given in relation to the meeting in accordance with Section 78(3) of the Local Government Measure 2011.

4.

Draft 2022 - 23 Budget pdf icon PDF 871 KB

To scrutinise the Draft 2022- 23 Budget.

 

Attached, in relation to the Cabinet’s Budget proposals to Council are the following documents:

Additional documents:

Minutes:

 

Documents Considered:

·         A copy of the Cabinet report to provide the overall context for the budget setting process

·         A copy of the Mid Term Financial Strategy and Finance Resource Model (Appendices A and B)

·         A copy of Services' cost reduction proposals (Appendix C)

·         A copy of the Fees and Charges Report which provides an overview to Service proposals for income generation. (Appendices D and E)

·         A copy of the Capital Strategy and the Treasury Management Strategy. (Appendix F)

·         A copy of the Reserves Policy (Appendix G)

·         A copy of the Budget Survey (Appendix H)

·         Individual Impact Assessments relating to the proposals under (iii) above (Appendix I) and the Council wide Impact Assessment (Appendix J)

 

Issues Discussed:

·         During the last financial year the Service has demonstrated that strong progress has been made in all recommendations following the Estyn Core Visit in 2019. The recent monitoring visit in October 2021 showed that the Service no longer required significant improvement and was therefore taken out of monitoring.

·         £1m additional funding has been invested in the Service in the budget, £500k for the Secondary School Improvement Strategy, and £500 for ALN transformation.

·         Pressures have been identified in the Service and in school budgets and in the budget £5m is being invested into education – £3.1m to support schools with pay and price pressures, £2m into the Schools Service for pay and price pressures and to improve through transformation funding.

·         Pressures identified in the Schools Service include property pressures over and above Property Plus, cashless re-tender and post 16 transition funding.

·         One area has been identified in the Schools Service for income generation (£5k) and one is a cost reduction (£50k).

·         Other proposals affecting schools are around workforce development, DBS checks and health and safety support in schools.

 

Question

Response

Can I have some clarity around the transformation figure of £824k. What specifically is this for and does it form part of the base budget or come out of revenue.

Transformation bids which have been successful are around £125k for ALN and £702k for the transformation of schools.

There is an annual application into the corporate transformation fund which supports transformation. There is a revenue fund as well. This is to do with any costs associated with transformation such as the costs of closing or merging schools, some infrastructure costs, consultation and communications. The other pot is for ALN transformation which gives over £824k for the next financial year.

Are these coming out of capital receipts and not part of the education base budget.

 

These amounts will not be in next year's base budget.

These are part of the Council's corporate revenue budget rather than the education budget and are one off costs for the implementation of transformation.

 

These are the costs which are a forecast of expenditure for this year only. This is the additional revenue funding to see the changes through.

This is year on year costs.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.