The meeting included items about proposed changes to Royal Greenwich’s school admission arrangements, ending the school trip grants scheme, and a number of financial reports.

Determination of Admission Arrangements for Royal Greenwich Schools for the 2026/27 Academic Year

The first substantive item scheduled to be discussed was about the determination of school admissions arrangements for all Royal Greenwich schools, including community, foundation, voluntary aided and academies, for the 2026/27 academic year.

The document recommends that the Royal Borough of Greenwich agrees to participate in the Pan London co-ordinated admission system¹ for planned entry into primary and secondary schools at Reception and Year 7 respectively.

The document recommends that Royal Greenwich agree to a number of changes to the oversubscription criteria used to allocate school places at community primary and secondary schools when applications exceed available places. These include reducing the published admission number² at Discovery School from 90 to 60, and at Montebelle Primary School from 60 to 45. The report says this will enable these schools “to plan with greater certainty in terms of staffing, curriculum delivery and financial viability” and “allows for provision be re-established in the longer term, if required”.

The report also recommends that Royal Greenwich agree to extend the existing oversubscription criterion, which gives priority to the children of teaching staff over other children based on home to school distance, to the children of all members of staff. The report states that “although this may lead to a small number of children living local to the school being displaced by children of staff who may live further away, it is envisaged that this criterion will promote morale, recruitment, and retention of teaching staff in a very competitive market”.

The report states that “all responses supported extending the priority given to teaching staff to all members of staff within Royal Greenwich’s oversubscription criteria”.

School Trip Grant Scheme

The second substantive item was a report on the School Trip Grant Scheme. It notes that the Royal Borough of Greenwich currently operates a pupil grants scheme that provides financial assistance to Greenwich children in low-income households. One part of the scheme provides financial support to schools for residential school trips for one to three nights. To be eligible for support, students must be eligible for free school meals and attend a local authority-maintained school in Greenwich. The report states that expenditure on the scheme “has varied between £50-70k per year” and that “no other London borough provided an equivalent scheme to assist with school trips” when benchmarking was last carried out in 2022.

The report recommends that the school trip grant scheme is ended. It says that “given the benchmarking, consultation responses, and financial position faced by the Council, it is recommended that the school trip scheme is abolished”.

Treasury Management and Capital Strategy 2025-26

The next item was about the Treasury Management and Capital Strategy for 2025/26.

The report states that “the Royal Borough of Greenwich is required to operate a balanced budget, which broadly means that cash raised during the year will, as a minimum, meet cash expenditure”. It says that the Treasury Management Strategy is designed “to ensure that this cash flow is adequately planned, with cash being available when needed” and that “surplus monies are invested in accordance with the Authority’s risk appetite and investment policy, having regard to security, liquidity and yield”. It states that the report pack contains the proposed Treasury Management Strategy, including “details of how the Council plans to manage its cash flow, investments, and borrowing in the upcoming financial year” and recommendations “to note the Minimum Revenue Provision for 2025/26 and refer this to Full Council”.

The report also recommends that a number of investment decisions be referred to Full Council, including:

• Approval of five bids totalling £6.5m for service transformation programmes that will deliver savings or spending reductions under the Flexible Use of Capital Receipts programme
• Approval of the Capital Strategy for 2025/26, including an additional £0.8m for potholes
• Adoption of the Prudential Indicators³ for the period 2023/24 to 2027/28.

In addition to these recommendations to note and refer various matters, the report recommends that the Council approve five capital bids totalling £2.4m to support the delivery of the Medium Term Financial Strategy.

Housing Revenue Account Medium Term Financial Strategy & 2025/26 Budget and Rent Setting

The next item was a report about the Housing Revenue Account (HRA)⁴ medium term financial strategy, the 2025/26 HRA budget, and rent setting for 2025/26.

The report states that the HRA has been under considerable financial pressure in recent years due to a number of factors, including increased demand, rising costs, and restrictions on rent increases imposed by central government. It states that the HRA will have a forecast minimum working balance deficit for 2025/26 and recommends that Royal Greenwich agree to not provide a voluntary Minimum Revenue Provision⁵ for the Housing Revenue Account in order to balance the HRA budget and ensure a sufficient minimum working balance.

The report makes a number of recommendations to address financial pressures on the HRA, including:

• Increasing social housing rents by 2.7% in line with the government’s rent standard, increasing the average weekly rental charge by £2.97 to £112.93 per week.
• Increasing tenant service charges for council homes by 2.7%, increasing the average service charge to £17.72 per week
• Increasing garage rents by £1 a week
• Rephasing the last 10% of spending on the capital programme to extend it to 2030/31 instead of 2028/29
• Extending the policy of allowing voids to be re-let at formula rent plus 5% for five further years
• Reviewing the funding provided to the Walpole Estate and River Heights tenant management organisations
• Switching some planned building from the Greenwich Builds programme to acquisitions of new homes to reduce costs and increase new housing supply
• Prioritising the use of GLA grant for new build homes and seeking to switch existing grant earmarked for Greenwich Builds from construction to acquisitions
• Converting an additional 100 void homes to temporary accommodation to reduce the council’s reliance on expensive and unsuitable hotels.
• Aligning the rents for HRA general needs homes being used as temporary accommodation with Local Housing Allowance (LHA)⁶ rates.

The report also recommends that Royal Greenwich agree to fund the HRA hardship fund with £200,000 in 2025/26. The report states that this fund “was created in 2023/24 in order to provide support for tenants who are struggling to pay their rent because of increases to the cost of living” and that it will “continue to support those in greatest risk and need, subject to the approved criteria for help”.

Medium Term Financial Strategy 2025-26+

The next item was about the Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy for 2025/26 and subsequent years.

The report states that the Council “has continued to plan for the medium term, despite a lack of certainty in relation to future government funding as a result of one-year finance settlements” and recommends that it agree the proposed Medium Term Financial Strategy for the four years to 2028/29.

It says that the Council is “facing around £150m of pressures” over the ten years to 2025, including “cuts to non-core grants, cash frozen grants and the significant demographic demand growth that the borough has faced coupled with price inflation pressures” and that “with increasing demand, rising costs and ever decreasing resources – services for vulnerable residents continue to be at risk if this situation continues”.

The report recommends that Royal Greenwich agree to make £46.7m of investments in 2025/26, “almost 70% of which is social care related” and including “at least”:

• £20m for Health and Adult Social Care
• £12m for Children’s Services
• £1m for “Universal Credit migration pressure”

The report also recommends that the Council approve a number of additional funding allocations. These include:

• £1m one-off funding from the Carbon Offset Section 106 budget to support the recommendations of the Royal Borough of Greenwich Co-operative Commission. This includes funding for “a pilot of a Community Energy Fund (CEF) to enable communities within the borough to bid for funding to support and/or deliver community energy projects that deliver carbon reductions”.
• £0.7m one-off funding from the Business Rates Levy to support the “Greenwich Supports Discretionary Council Tax Hardship Fund and revenues collection”

The report recommends that the Council approve £1.2m of new savings and income generation proposals, increasing to £2.1m by 2028/29, and sets out details of each of the proposals. It recommends that, in order to deliver these proposals, the Council also approve the additional revenue and capital investment costs of the proposals.

The report also recommends that the Council agree to raise its share of council tax by 2.99% and approve an Adult Social Care precept of 2% for 2025/26, and notes that this will result in an increase of 139p per week at Band D.

Budget and Council Tax Setting 2025-26

The final item was about the Council’s budget and council tax setting for 2025/26.

The report states that the Council has a statutory obligation to set a balanced budget each year, and notes that the Government has confirmed that in 2025/26 local authorities with social care responsibilities will be able to raise their share of council tax by up to 2.99% and levy a 2% Adult Social Care precept without the need to hold a referendum.

The report recommends that the Council agree a headline increase of 4.99% (2.99% borough element and 2% ASC precept) in its share of council tax, and sets out the impact this will have on each council tax band. It also recommends that the council agree to “the addition to the council tax in 2025/26 on the taxpayers in premises surrounding the garden in Gloucester Circus" and notes the impact this will have on residents.

The report notes that the Greater London Authority (GLA) is proposing to increase its precept by 4.0% in 2025/26, and sets out the impact this will have on residents in Greenwich.

It also notes that the Council “calculated the following amounts for the year 2025/26, in accordance with regulations made under Section 31B(3) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 as amended by the 2011 Localism Act” at its meeting on 29 January 2025, and recommends that it make a number of additional calculations and pass the relevant statutory resolutions.

The report notes that the Dedicated Schools Grant allocations for 2025/26 were published by the Education and Skills Funding Agency in December 2024. It recommends that the Council note the levels of funding provided and that “the budget proposals for 2025/26 were agreed by the Schools Forum⁷ on 15 January 2025”.

The report concludes with a statement from the Council’s Chief Finance Officer on the robustness of the budget estimates and the adequacy of the financial reserves.