Agenda and minutes

To receive apologies for absence and notification of any substitutes present.

Apologies for absence had been received from Mrs V J Dagger and Ms D Marsh.

Mr Sweetland was present as a substitute for Ms Marsh.

To receive any declarations of interest made by Members in relation to any matter on the agenda.  Members are reminded to specify the agenda item number to which it refers and the nature of the interest being declared.

Mrs C J Waters declared a personal interest as a Trustee of Romney Marsh Day Centre.

Mr S J G Koowaree declared a personal interest as his grandson was in the care of the County Council.  

To receive a report from the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Cabinet Member for Finance and Procurement and Deputy Leader, to note the draft budget and Medium Term Financial Plan and suggest any other issues which should be reflected in them, prior to Cabinet on 23 January and County Council on 9 February.

Mr D Shipton, Head of Financial Strategy, and Miss M Goldsmith, Finance Business Partner, Social Care, Health and Wellbeing, were in attendance for this item.

1.            Mr Shipton introduced the report and gave a brief overview of the County Council’s budget for the 2017/18 financial year, which, he explained, was similar to those of the past six years. In its 2017/18 budget, the Council needed to:

·         fund a further £66m to complete the statutory service framework on which it was required to set its annual budget,

·         accommodate a £46m reduction in Government funding,

·         find an additional £34m from council tax.  This would be made up of a growth in the council tax base (ie an increase in the number of households paying council tax) and an increase of 1.9%, plus 2.0% social care levy, permitted by government. Local Authorities had been permitted by the Government to increase council tax by a maximum of 6% over three years (with no one year having an increase above 3%), and the County Council had consulted upon and committed to an increase of 2.0% in 2017/18 and the next two years, and

·         find a further £78m of savings.

2.            He went on to explain that the County Council’s medium term (ie 2015/16 – 2019/20) spending was based on ‘flat-cash’, the total of which was currently in the second year of a two-year dip, meaning the 2017/18 financial year should be less challenging.  The term ‘flat-cash’ meant there would be no overall additional funding for rising costs or demand pressures, so these would have to be covered by savings and spending reductions. The County Council had assumed that it would have discretion to use some of this flat-cash to fund social care.

3.            The County Council’s public consultation exercise had indicated that 75% of Kent residents supported an increase in council tax to help fund social care, while past consultations had shown that if the public were helped to understand the link between increasing council tax and funding social care, they were more likely to support an increase.

4.            Miss Goldsmith introduced the three appendices to the budget report and explained that these were set out in the same way as the sections in the Budget book and Medium Term Financial Plan.

5.            Mr Shipton, Miss Goldsmith, Mr Ireland and Mrs Tidmarsh responded to questions from Members, as follows:-

a)     a saving had been forecast in direct payments as the number of people purchasing services by using a direct payment had declined steadily in recent years;

b)    the budget allocation for domiciliary care services had been realigned to respond to patterns in demand for services;

c)    in a few places, the figures presented in the budget appendices published with Cabinet Committee agendas earlier in the month differed from those in the Budget book published later as there had been some budget movement in the interim.  In such cases, figures presented in the Budget book were the most up-to-date. Miss Goldsmith undertook to look  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.