Councillor Gledhill invited Councillor Gerrish to read the question that he had submitted.

Given the forecast overspend for the year is already over one million pounds, does the Leader still have confidence in his service budgets?

In response the Leader of the Council advised “Thank you, Councillor Gerrish.  Before I give my answer, let’s remind ourselves of what we inherited when we took administration and indeed the same report at this time in 2015.  That was the last similar report of the previous, Labour Administration.  That 2015 report showed a first quarter pressure of £1.269million comprising of a number of issues such as shortfall from recharges, impact of environment contracts failing, overspends in environment and transformation budgets to name a few.  Indeed, most of us will see some of the similarities to this evening.  That Cabinet assured residents that it would be cleared by the end of the financial year, however by the end of that financial year we inherited from the Labour Administration a forecast net pressures of over £4million in 2016.  Yes, £4million shortfall that we had to address before starting on our own priorities.

Now, at the end of the last financial year, and that was the first of the Conservative Administration, bearing in mind we had the same amount of tax payers’ money to spend as the previous Administration and induced the Clean it, Cut it, Fill it Programme.  We reduced the pressures caused by the number of unaccompanied asylum seeker children, we saved a small fortune in penalties from the Government by using the right to buy receipts to cover the cost of the new council homes your administration commissioned at a cost that was so massive to build they wouldn’t have sold on the open market without making a loss, we introduced a new, proactive environmental enforcement team but most of all we finished the year with minor underspends in both the general and housing revenue accounts.

I would also like to point you in the direction of the external auditor’s assessment that is set out in the Annual Results Report to be considered by the Standards and Audit Committee next week.  Not only does it give a positive value for money conclusion – this is their independent assessment of the Council’s financial position and plans for the future – but in reaching that conclusion they carried out testing on a number of the budget assumptions and savings proposals, and said they were good.

So, I can assure you, Councillor Gerrish that the Cabinet are working closely with our Directors in identifying ways to bridge this gap and are sure that future reports will show the progress being made.  So, based on the last year of the Labour Administration versus the first year of the Conservative Administration, I think any objective minded individual would have as much confidence as I do in delivering a balanced budget, so the short answer: yes.”

Councillor Gerrish was offered a supplementary question in which he asked: “Thank  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35