To receive any apologies for absence.

There were no apologies from members of the cabinet.

None.

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2017.

Following a query from the leader for It’s Our County, the cabinet member for infrastructure confirmed that the South Wye transport package is a standalone package.  

RESOLVED:  That the Minutes of the meeting held on 14 December 2017 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive questions from members of the public.

Deadline for receipt of questions is 5:00pm on Tuesday 9 January 2018.

Accepted questions will be published as a supplement prior to the meeting.

Please see https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/getinvolved for information on how to submit a question.

No questions were received from members of the public.

To receive questions from councillors.

Deadline for receipt of questions is 5:00pm on Tuesday 9 January 2018.

Accepted questions will be published as a supplement prior to the meeting.

No questions were received from councillors.

To review the proposed capital programme including proposed investment additions for 2018/19 onwards and determine recommendations to Council.

The cabinet member for finance, housing and corporate services presented the report and highlighted:

·         Appendix 1 shows the proposed capital programme

·         Appendix 2 shows the current approved capital programme

·         Appendix 3 provided an indication of the total programme, if approved. 

·         Each programme would need its own business case and appropriate approval before proceeding,

Following a request from the cabinet member for finance, housing and corporate services, the S151 officer agreed to amend appendix 3 to provide more clarity over the funding of schemes, bring forward of spend, any budget slippage and budget totals.    This was proposed as an additional recommendation as set out in (b) below.

Following questions from the leader of It’s Our County, it was confirmed:

Political support scores

The political point scores on page 27 represented an indicative score based on previous reports that have already received approval through the governance arrangements.  For example if the proposal follows a previous report on service delivery changes approved by Cabinet then it scores a higher political support score than if there are no previous report approvals already in place.

Development partnership activities

The detail behind the benefits and returns to the council from the £20m request for ‘Development Partnership activities’ in 2018/19 on page 29 will be provided as the individual decision approval to incur spend is secured. The £40m total investment mentioned on page 33 is funded through £10m capital receipts, £10m corporately funded prudential borrowing and the previously approved £20m prudential borrowing where the borrowing cost is funded from anticipated returns on the investment. Any additional returns over and above this would therefore be available to fund other costs.   With regard to whether this would represent poor value for a £40m, it was noted that the council would be looking for returns commensurate with good treasury management and there would also be some investments which will provide social value and long term economic value which would be difficult to measure at this stage.

Fastershire

The £7.248m on Fastershire broadband programme was in line with the Fastershire Broadband Strategy adopted by Cabinet in December 2015.

The total scheme budget of £32,603,000 represented the total current public contribution between 2013/14 and 2019/20 towards the delivery of the Fastershire Broadband Strategy. This figure includes just over £13m of Herefordshire Council funding.

The £7,248,000 budgeted for 2018/19 represented the contributions from both Herefordshire Council and external funding that will be spent on delivering 3 contracts; Lot 2/3c which covers south Herefordshire delivered by Gigaclear, Lot 4 the north of Herefordshire (also Gigaclear) and Lot 3b in the city delivered by BT.

The premises which will be enabled with this funding is available via Fastershire.com.  

The cabinet member for economy and communications stated that the contract with Gigaclear would provide coverage for 94% of the county.   The areas outside of this coverage were mainly rural.   

Following a statement from the group leader for the Herefordshire Independents, the cabinet member for economy and communications stated that the contracts had been well managed given  ...  view the full minutes text for item 78.

To agree the draft 2018/19 budget and medium term financial strategy (MTFS) for recommendation to Council on 26 January 2018.

The cabinet member for finance, housing and corporate services presented the report and highlighted:  

·         The report seeks to put forward a balanced budget for recommendation for full council on 26 January 2018.     

·         There had been a provisional settlement announced in the middle of December 2017 which has provided certain options to be considered, in particular the government had changed the basis on which a referendum was required by increasing council tax from 2% to 3% due to the effect of inflation and other clarifications in the settlement.    

·         The 20% increase in planning fees had been approved.  

Due to the provisional settlement announcement, the cabinet member for finance, housing and corporate services was now proposing an amendment to the recommendation ii and iii so that the core council tax was increased to 2.9% (instead of the 1.9% stated in recommendation ii of the report) and the adult social care costs be reduced to 2% (instead of 3% as stated in recommendation iii of the report).   This would provide the council the same amount of revenue but would allow greater flexibility in how the money could be spent.   The adult social care precept was one off funding which may not be available the following financial year and the increase in the core council tax would be added to the base budget and therefore available the following year.    

It was proposed that an additional recommendation as set out in vii below was required to make technical, grammatical and typographical amendments to appendices 1 and 5.   Following a query from the group leader for the Green party, it was confirmed that these amendments were not material and would not need to go back to General Scrutiny Committee.   The S151 officer agreed to circulate to scrutiny committee members’ details of the changes which would be made to the documentation.  

Following a query from the cabinet member for infrastructure, the S151 officer confirmed a base budget review had taken place and where necessary adjustments to base budgets had taken place.    Details of the changes in the directorate base budgets were contained within the table at paragraph 17 of the report. 

The S151 officer confirmed that there would be no impact on the budget if the changes proposed were agreed as there would still be a 4.9% increase in council tax.  

It was noted that Local Government Association had reported that the majority of other local authorities were adding increases to the core council tax rather than the precept for adult social care due to the uncertainty over whether the adult social care funding would still be available the next year. 

The group leader for It’s Our County indicated that it would be a good idea to raise the base budget provided it did not impact on the adult social care budget.   The cabinet member for health and wellbeing confirmed that it would have no impact on his portfolio area.  

Following a question from the group leader for It’s Our County, it was confirmed that the option  ...  view the full minutes text for item 79.

To recommend the continuation of the 2017/18 council tax reduction scheme for 2018/19 initially approved by Council on 18 December 2015

The cabinet member for finance, housing and corporate services presented the report and highlighted:

·         The scheme was reviewed on an annual basis;

·         The scheme had been agreed at full council in December 2015; and

·         the recommendation was for the scheme to continue with no changes.  

Following a query from the leader of the liberal democrats, it was confirmed that the scheme would be kept under review in case amendments were needed in future years.  

That:

(a)   it be recommended to Council that the existing council tax reduction scheme, attached at appendix 2, be retained for 2018/19.