Issue - meetings

1.    Cabinet approved the Medium-Term Financial Strategy 2024/25 to 2028/29 as set out in Appendix A to the report.

2.    Cabinet noted a four-year General Fund savings requirement of £2.5m between 2025 – 2029.

3.    Cabinet noted that the Chief Finance Officer will work with the Council’s Strategic Leadership Team and Cabinet to deliver options that will achieve the medium-term saving targets identified within the strategy.

4.    Cabinet endorsed the Financial Planning Framework to support the budget setting process for 2025/26.

5.    Cabinet agreed that the Chief Finance Officer be requested to revise the Medium-Term Financial Strategy and re-present to Cabinet for approval if material changes to forecasts are required following future Government announcements

6.    Cabinet resolved to recommend that Council approves the fees and charges in appendices C-F, with the exception of garden Waste and garages fees that require further review prior to recommendation to Council. The car parking fees will be set through the ongoing parking tariff consultation and review process that is delegated to the Portfolio holder for Corporate and Commercial.

Cllr England introduced the report and invited the Chief Finance Officer, NHowcutt, to present the report which includes a proposed amendment to recommendation 6.

NHowcutt outlined the report and referred to the recommendations as set out and advised that there is a slight amendment to recommendation 6, which recommends that Cabinet recommend to Council the approval of the fees & charges in appendices C to F.  This is now with the exception of garden waste and garage fees that are going to come under additional review before final authorisation through council.  One other point worth noticing that has come back from comments at scrutiny last week; there are car parking fees in the appendices there with a 0% increase.  As this committee is aware, the parking tariff consultation process is underway and coming to a conclusion and that has been a delegated decision to the Portfolio Holder so this report is not asking for Council or Cabinet to make any recommendations on car parking fees.

Cllr Williams raised a question relating to the amendment to recommendation 6 and the change in the timescales in the way in which fees and charges are now set.

To view the discussion on this item, please refer to the video minutes.

Decision:

The recommendations as set out in the report were agreed, subject to the amendment to recommendation 6, to read;