Issue - meetings

To consider the Cabinet’s recommendations in respect of the Budget and Council Tax for the 2021-22 financial year.

Further to Minute No.117 of the meeting of the Cabinet held on 15th February, 2021, consideration was given to the report that proposed the Council’s Budget and Council Tax for 2021/22.  This was based on the outcome of the Council’s Final Local Government Finance Settlement, budget consultation process and consideration of Directorate budget proposals through the Council’s formal Budget and Scrutiny processes (Overview and Scrutiny Management Board), alongside a review of the financial planning assumptions within the Medium Term Financial Strategy.

In was stated in the report that in setting the proposed 2021/22 budget, Cabinet had recommended an increase of 1.99% in the Council’s basic Council Tax and an Adult Social Care precept of 1.0%. 

The report proposed the revenue budget for 2021/22, an updated capital programme to 2023/24 and the updated Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) to 2022/23.

In moving the recommendations, the Leader thanked everyone who had contributed to the process of pulling the budget proposals together, in particular the Strategic Director – Finance and Customer Services and her team, the Cabinet Member - Corporate Services and Finance, and Cabinet colleagues.

The Leader stated that after 11 years of austerity, and in the face of a global pandemic, it was unsurprising that councils across the country were under unprecedented financial pressure, with 12 councils being reportedly in discussion with the Government about additional support. The Leader stated that this was the same Government that had told councils that they needed to be more entrepreneurial, who were now saying that councils should not take risks.

The Leader noted that the 2019 Conservative manifesto had praised the virtue of low Council Tax, but that in the Spending Review, where an extra £2.2bn for councils had been announced, it had not been mentioned that 85% of this increase in available funding would come from higher Council Tax bills, and not from the Government directly. The Leader noted that as a consequence it was not surprising that three quarters of councils with social care responsibilities were expecting to increase bills by the full 4.99% allowed in 2021. The Leader stated that while this showed that public services could not be run on fresh air, the Conservative Government were cutting the funding for road repairs in Rotherham by £2.6million, withdrawing half a million pounds of annual contributions to support the Council with Operation Stovewood and cutting regional economic growth funding to South Yorkshire by at least a third.

The Leader stated that according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the most deprived parts of the country had seen their council budgets cut by nearly twice as much as the most affluent by the current Government, and that this showed that the Government did not understand communities like Rotherham

The Leader stated that the Council had not taken commercial risks, but instead had trusted public servants to deliver public services and that these decisions had been taken as they had been the right, rather than the easy thing to do. The Leader stated that because  ...  view the full minutes text for item 456