The Board gave consideration to the report as set out on pages 71-80 of the agenda, which provided suggestions on how Scrutiny could support the budget setting process for 2023/24.

The Chairperson expressed disappointment that the papers received did not contain the identified elements of the budget that the Board wished to scrutinise at the meeting, as specified in the Scrutiny Management Board Work Plan 2022-23. This was in spite of extensive pre-meeting discussions at a senior level setting out the information the Board were requesting. It was suggested that, in respect of both the Scrutiny Management Board and other scrutiny committees, a greater commitment was required at leadership level to provide members with the information they were entitled to in a timely manner, and an assurance was sought from the Leader of the Council, in attendance, that the information that had been requested for inclusion the report would be provided to a future meeting. The Leader confirmed that it was useful to gain an understanding of how the Board wished to scrutinise the budget process and undertook to work with officers to ensure that future papers provide what is asked for.

Members suggested that to put the current budgetary position and pressures into context, it would be useful to receive a comparison against the position at the beginning of the 2021/22 Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS). Members also expressed a desire to see different potential budgetary scenarios modelled to gain an insight into how the picture may look if some of the underlying assumptions turned out to be better or worse than expected.

It was resolved that:

A further budget meeting be convened, in October 2022, for the purpose of considering a report which fully addresses the five key items of interest identified in the Scrutiny Management Board Work Plan:

(i)              The financial outturn for 2021-2022;

(ii)             The budget priorities, positioning, assumptions and risks informing the development of the budget proposals for 2023-2024;

(iii)           How the budget priorities and plans link to the Council priorities;

(iv)           The arrangements and overall timetable for the scrutiny of the budget proposals for 2023-2024 for agreement in 2023; and

(v)             The plans for consultation on the budget proposals for 2023-2024.