Issue - meetings

The Director of Resources submitted a report asking committee to approve the revised Revenue Budget for 2021/22 and to recommend a revenue budget and council tax requirement for 2022/23 to Council on 8 March 2022.

The revised budget now forecast that instead of having to take £400k from general fund balances to balance the budget, £198k would now be added to balances at the end of the year.

She explained the main reasons for committee expenditure having fallen by £360k.

A significant element of our income was business rate growth and the Director of Resources outlined the latest estimate of Ribble Valley’s share of business rate income for the current year.

When setting the original budget it had been agreed to use £795,549 to fund the revenue budget and £85,200 to fund the capital programme. Based on the latest position we expect to receive £1.469m, use £85,200 to fund the capital programme, use £795,549 to fund the base revenue budget and use £6,675 of further revenue in year expenditure approved by the Emergency committee; therefore the revised difference of £581,719 would be added to the business rate growth reserve.

She informed committee that there were further in year complications due to the late announcement in March 2021 of 100% retail discount for the 3 months to 30 June 2021 followed by a 66% discount for the remaining 9 months. The section 31 grant for the expanded retail discount would be moved into next year by setting aside in an earmarked reserve totalling £1.641m.

The forecast transfers to and from earmarked reserves compared with the original estimate were highlighted, in particular the addition of £1.766m to earmarked reserves largely due to timing differences in receipt of section 31 grants that would need to be carried forward to offset the deficit to be faced next year.

Looking forward to 2022/31, the Director of Resources briefly highlighted the key elements of the final grant settlement; rural services delivery grant; lower tier services grant; 2022/23 services grant; future years government funding and the reforms due to come on Fair Funding Review, Business Rate Retention reform and New Homes Bonus scheme.

The report went on to detail the Council Tax Base and the Council Tax Referendum criteria. The Director of Resources highlighted the fact that the current band D tax of £155.69 meant that Ribble Valley was in the bottom quartile of all district councils at 28^th out of 188 and the lowest across Lancashire districts. The report outlined the potential amount of income that would be generated by increasing the Council Tax by £5 (the maximum allowed for next year). This would generate £122,765 in extra revenue and in addition the increase in the tax base would generate a further £85,007

Reference was made to the New Homes Bonus scheme and the Director of Resources informed members that we currently rely on £1.105m each year to fund the revenue budget. The assumption had been made that 2022/23 was the last year of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 683