St Helens Council met to discuss its financial position and a range of policy areas, including housing and HIV. The Council noted a number of reports covering its finances, performance, and plans. It agreed to sign the Paris and Seville Fast Track Cities Declaration to tackle HIV in the borough. It also endorsed a memorandum of understanding with Homes England, the government’s housing and regeneration agency, to accelerate housebuilding in the borough.

Financial Position

The Council’s finances are in a challenging state, with a £3.116 million overspend reported for 2023/24. Councillor Bond, cabinet member for finance, reported that this is less than had been forecast, but warned that it was “not a great picture” and that “there is still a call on reserves to cover that overspend”.

Councillor Bond went on to explain that while some of the overspend had been mitigated by one-off underspends, this could not be relied on in future years. He went on to say that “we can’t continue to use reserves, we’ve said it before, it’s not sustainable”. He cited the costs of caring for vulnerable children and rising demand for adult social care, as key pressures on the budget.

Councillor Gomez-Esperanza, cabinet member for transport and environment, warned that her portfolio was facing particular budget pressures this year due to falling prices for recyclable materials and high levels of food price inflation.

Performance

Despite the challenging budget position, the Council reported that 60% of its performance indicators were on track, with Councillor Loeffler, cabinet member for efficiency and change, reporting that “despite the challenging context and continued pressure on resources, 60% of indicators are performing on or above target or within 5% performance threshold”. The report highlights a number of areas of strong performance, including the number of trees planted, and the performance of the borough’s planning department.

Councillor Gomez-Esperanza welcomed the fact that the borough has a low rate of recycling contamination, saying this was due to the success of the curbside sort system used in the borough. The system means less waste is sent to landfill, where it decomposes and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The report, which covers performance in 2023/24, was Oflog data, which allows councils to be compared to one another on a variety of metrics.

Homes England Strategic Place Partnership

The Council agreed to endorse a memorandum of understanding with Homes England that will see the two organisations working in partnership to build more homes in the borough. Councillor Macaulay, cabinet member for regeneration and housing, said that the partnership “will enable St Helens to hit the ground running with proposed new opportunities”. Councillor Long, cabinet member for public health and wellbeing, added that the partnership would help address the problem of homelessness in the borough, which she attributed to “unaffordable and insecure tenancies”.

HIV Fast Track Cities Initiative

Councillors agreed to sign the Fast Track Cities declaration, committing the local authority to ending HIV transmission by 2030. This will see St Helens joining with other local authorities in the Liverpool City Region to deliver the initiative. Introducing the report, Councillor Murphy, cabinet member for children and young people, said the commitment would mean “St Helens [is] on board” with tackling HIV.