Agenda item

Report of the Chief Fire Officer and Treasurer to the Fire Authority

Becky Smeathers, Head of Finance, presented the joint report of the Chief Fire Officer and Treasurer to the Fire Authority.

The report presents proposals for the Revenue and Capital budgets for the period 2019/20 to 2021/22 and requests that the Authority determine the level of Council Tax for 2019/20, and seeks approval for fees and charges for 2019/20 and the continuation of the payment of Members’ Allowances within the approved scheme.

The following points were highlighted and questions from members responded to:

(a)  The Capital Programme is the same as was presented to the Finance and Resources Committee in January;

(b)  The Revenue budget requirement has increased by £288k since its submission to the Finance and Resources Committee.  This is due to final adjustments to the expenditure budget and a £127k reduction in collection fund surpluses;

(c)  The employers’ contribution rates are set to increase for the firefighters’ pension fund following changes by the Treasury to discount rates used in pension valuations.  The exact employer rates are not yet known but costs are expected to be in the region of £2.2m with the Home Office providing a grant of £2m to part fund the additional expenditure. Furthermore, there is an ongoing court case regarding the transitional arrangements to the 2015 Firefighters’ pension scheme.  Dependant on the outcome of the case, there could be significant additional costs which would need to be funded from reserves;

(d)  Some savings are projected into 2019/20 including Mixed crewing(£800k), Joint Control Room (£350k) and budget manager reductions (£200k) as outlined in the report, with further savings required;

(e)  Projections of the budget deficit with a 2.95% Council Tax Rise in 2019/20 and 1.95% increase thereafter, are provided in table 3 within the report;

(f)  It is difficult to produce finance projections and longer term objectives as it is not yet known what the funding levels from Central Government will be beyond 2019/20. It is hoped that there will be an indication by the spring of next year. For the purposes of planning it has been assumed that funding will be provided at a flat rate.  The impact of a 5% variance in Central Government funding would be approximately £600k.

Members of the Authority made the following comments:

(g)  Authority members of all political parties thanked Becky Smeathers and the Finance Team for undertaking the budgetary work and providing detailed and comprehensive information;

(h)  No joy is taken by members in increasing council tax by 2.95% but political unity is developing in that services like the Fire and Rescue Service depend on local funding so it is hoped that in the circumstances, the 2.95% increase is acceptable to citizens;

(i)  The recommendation of a 2.95% increase is agreed as although savings are consistently sought, there is concern at the ongoing requirement and reliance on the use of reserves. This is not sustainable;

(j)  Further information is requested for the Finance and Resources Committee regarding where further savings have been and could be achieved.

The Chair assured the Authority that he and the Chief Fire Officer would continue to raise with MPs the pressing concerns around the future funding of the Service.

Members voting in favour of implementing a 2.95% increase of Council Tax precept are:

Councillor Brian Grocock (Chair)

Councillor Michael Payne (Vice-Chair)

Councillor Andrew Brown

Councillor Eunice Campbell-Clark

Councillor John Clarke

Councillor Sybil Fielding

Councillor Vaughan Hopewell

Councillor Patience Ifediora

Councillor John Longdon

Councillor Jackie Morris

Councillor Francis Purdue-Horan

Councillor Mike Quigley

Councillor Kevin Rostance

Councillor Mohammed Saghir

Councillor Parry Tsimbiridis

Councillor Jonathan Wheeler

Councillor Malcolm Wood

Member not present: Councillor Jason Zadrozny

RESOLVED

(1)  to approve a 2.95% Council Tax increase, with the balance of £1.448m to be met by funding from reserves in line with the Medium Term Financial Strategy;

(2)  to task the Chief Fire Officer to identify options for addressing the 2020/21 £798k deficit to enable the Fire Authority to approve a balanced budget going forward, as required by law;

(3)  for the 2019/20 precept level to be notified to the Billing Authorities based on the information set out in Section 2 and Appendix C to the report, as required by statute;

(4)  to approve the fees and charges for 2019/20, as set out in Appendix D to the report;

(5)  to approve the payment of Members Allowances for 2019/20 in accordance with the approved scheme.