Agenda and minutes

(Previously circulated – Members are asked to bring their copy with them to the meeting.

Mr J D Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance; Ms S J Carey, Deputy Cabinet Member for Finance; Ms L McMullan, Director of Finance; and Mr A Wood, Head of Financial Management; will attend the meeting at 10.00 am to answer Members’ questions about the draft medium-term plan and budget proposals.

Mr J Simmonds, Cabinet Member for Finance, Ms S J Carey, Deputy Cabinet Member for Finance, Ms L McMullan, Director of Finance, Mr A Wood, Head of Financial Management and Mr D Shipton, Finance Strategy Manager were present for this item.

The Committee considered the draft Budget and draft Medium Term Plan and a summary of the comments of the previous Policy Overview and Scrutiny Committees on the Draft Budget and Draft Medium Term Plan was circulated for Members’ information.

The Chairman stated that throughout the POSC’s consideration of the budget documents the only questions raised, with the exception of one, were from opposition Members.  Mrs Dean asked the Cabinet Member whether any instruction had been given to Conservative group members not to ask questions on the budget.  Mr Simmonds had not heard of such an instruction and none had come from him.  Other Conservative Members of the Committee confirmed that no such instruction had been received. 

In response to a question from Mr Christie about previous comments made by the County Council that the Government was ‘starving’ the Council, Mr Simmonds explained that had the Council had its fair share of funding, an additional £70 million would have been available to Kent this year; the Cabinet Member had no doubt that other areas of the country had benefited more than Kent and the South East Local Authorities. 

In response to a question from Mr Christie about KCC’s Council tax increase and the average formula grant, Mr Simmonds explained that it was important to compare like for like.  The Chairman asked whether it was possible to look more closely at the Government formula and which parts of the formula were inscrutable?  Ms McMullan explained that a number of years ago much of the formula was in effect ‘blackboxed’.  There were changes to the funding formula in relation to census information and an artificial ceiling was put in; the Council successfully changed the funding formula following a 3 year debate with the government but it was now at a standstill position.  She gave the example of social care for the elderly where local authorities in London receive a higher grant to meet higher London cost but place their elderly in homes in Kent which received less.  Ms McMullan explained that a report about differences in funding produced about 3 years ago was available to Members; it was a complex picture and showed that KCC was disadvantaged and the Council couldn’t benefit from some of the grants.  Ms McMullan offered to annotate this report to update it with the key areas of additional funding in the past three years, i.e. Building Schools for the Future funding, and make the report available to Members. 

The Committee had a discussion about whether they required this report, there was a view that Members should be looking forward rather than back and Mrs Law proposed that a vote be taken on asking Financial Services to update the report and make it available to Members.  Mr Brookbank  ...  view the full minutes text for item 33.