Transcript

and Pete Prendigas, so big shoes to Phil James. Thank you. A little word from me before we start. It meant no seriousness. I'm sorry, it's me talking laughing. First of January to 2024. This meeting has been webcast with the exception of any business that council resolves to exclude the press and public because of the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined by the local government act, 1972. This meeting is being held as a hybrid meeting with members attending in person at the council chamber, county hall, written or remotely by a video conference. Those attempting remotely are kindly asked to mute their microphones unless they're called upon to speak. Members are also asked to have the video switched on throughout the meeting unless I specifically request you to turn your video off to improve the quality of the audio link when you are speaking. You will be expected to restart your video once you have finished speaking. Please also refrain from using the chat facility as messages sent to all are visible on the webcast. To aid transparency, our meeting business must be conducted through the chair. Thank you. Apologies. I don't think I have any actually. I think everybody's either here in the chamber or remote. Yeah, yes, yes. We'll be all there. Thank you very much. Decorations of interest, Gary.

• Yeah, Mr. Criteria, did there a lot then?
• Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members will be aware of the requirements and the council's code of conduct to declare any personal or prejudicial interest in respect of any business to be considered today's meeting. Such interest should be declared now or as soon as the council affected becomes a way that they have a personal or prejudicial interest in today's business. All members declaring an interest are required to stay clearly whether that interest is a personal interest or a personal and prejudicial interest as defined in the code of conduct. Any member declaring a prejudicial interest is required to leave the meeting for the duration of the business and cannot take part in the proceedings. Members with a personal interest don't need to take part in the debate and any vote. If a personal or personal or prejudicial interest is declared today that has not previously been disclosed and recorded, the council are concerned will be required to complete and sign a declaration of interest form, which is either available from the committee support staff in attendance here today or online.
• Thank you, Chair. Can I just declare a personal interest? I propose to refer to the Clued Pension Fund in my address to the council later. I receive a small pensions from that fund or contributions I made as a cabinet member some years ago, but it's a personal interest.
• Thank you.
• Interest? No. Thank you then. I shall go on to item three, urgent matters on my sheet, I've got two urgent-ish matters. The first one is Rhys Thomas.
• Dear Mr. Kadeva.
• Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for an opportunity to bring one matter to your attention, which is the matter of the new police station in Pristatin. If you, as members, remember last year, Councilor Hewoven brought a motion to the full council, which was supported by the whole council. So it was a new unanimous vote if I remember rightly for this council to put pressure on the relevant authorities and on North Wales police to implement having a police station back in Pristatin. As I'm sure that you've seen the press release due to the connections that we've made with the police, then this dream is now being realized. A number of meetings have been held between the chief executive, myself, and the chief constable. And following on from that, there has been some progress last Tuesday. This police strategic board were meeting and they have approved this plan to proceed with having a police station at Pristatin. The following morning, myself and the chief executive met again with the chief constable and we decided between us that we had enough assurance certainty about the plan to put out a press release. So I'd like to thank all the councillors who have supported the motion that was put before the council. I'd like to thank Councillor Huwaving for bringing the motion to us last year. I would like to thank those who've been working on this over the years, including the late Councillor Peter Pendingast and the remainder of Pristatin councillors. And this scheme is now going to be delivered. I'd like to thank the chief constable for her enthusiasm for this scheme. I'd like to thank officers of this County Council and the chief executive also for their work. There will be a fuller report on this coming to the Pristatin mark in two weeks time, as I understand. So thank you very much for the opportunity to bring good news to the council. Which shows what can happen when all Councillors work together on the scheme. And it also shows how we can make progress when the council is able to work with other partners, such as the police. So thank you very much, Chair.
• Do you want to respond to you?
• Thank you, Chair. Well, that is very encouraging news, Rhys. Very, very, very pleased. During the five years that I represented the British County Council on the police and crime panel, I worked hard to build up relationships within North Wales police. And then when I moved on and handed that role over to Councillor Peter Pendingast, I briefed him thoroughly at the time. First job we did. And he grasped the issue immediately. And I must say he picked the ball up and continued to run with it. And subsequent to that Council at Diane King has done the same. So I'm very pleased to hear that news. And I look forward to further developments and hope that we can finally bring this much needed anomaly where a town, a growing town of 20 something thousand population with a large retail park has no physical police presence in it of any nature. And we shall look forward to seeing the proposed neighbourhood policing teams and the local Bead officers operating from there. And I've almost been wondering whether I might even consider if we ever get to an opening ceremony to try to present them with a blue lap to put over the door. Thank you.
• Thank you, you. My second urgent matter is Terry Mendes.
• Thank you, Mr Chair. And it's in a similar vein on, you know, congratulations in order. On the 12th of January of this year, Areva, the bus company, terminated the bus service, the X-51 service going into the village of Landagla. And they actually, instead of going down into the village and picking residents up, they just carried along on the A525 from Rex and Territhi. So this actually cut, completely cut off the residents of the village. And the infirm, the disabled, they were expected to walk a mile and a quarter uphill to the crossroads on the A525 and try and catch a bus at a bus stop that didn't exist. Now this obviously caused a lot of dismay and angst and consternation to the residents, but certainly it was a lot of angst towards DCC. And yeah, we got a bit of flap. However, Mr Chair, can I report that? Yeah, can I report to the council that a river of reinstated partly a service, a skeleton sort of service to the village shop in in Landagla and DCC under Sarah, Sarah, farmer, have put out a tender and minibus service that will connect to other services. So it's a solution in sorts until June. So can I take this opportunity to thank Barry Miller, the lead member for transport? He's done an absolute sterling job in this. He's been involved in Carolyn Thomas and Darren Miller. And basically there's been a flurry of emails. I don't know how many phone calls you made, Barry, but you must have blisters on your fingers with them. So a solution has been found just over a couple of weeks time. And as Councillor Riese said, it's a good indication, and it's a good example of what can be achieved when councillors work together for the good of Dambisha regarding a regardless of political persuasion. And I really think there should be more of that. So once again, a big thank you to Councillor Miller and to Sarah Palmer, I did say I'd put him for a pay rise for her but given the current circumstances, I don't think that's possible. Thank you.
• Happy birthday, Barry.
• Thank you, Terry. Barry, would you like to respond?
• Yeah, thank you.
• Oh, stop.
• It must be the Terry's compliment today. (laughing)
• I'd just like to thank Councillor Tillamandis for that, but really to say that the hard work that Sarah had done in our traffic office was tremendous, along with Caroline Thomas, Sarah M.S., and Darren Miller. They all worked in partnership with the reaver, and I'm glad that we have found a solution. Thanks very much.
• Thank you, Barry, thank you, Terry. Wonderful. Okay, moving on now to item four on my agenda, which is the minutes of the previous meeting held on the 14th of November. I think we go through these for accuracy first. On my sheet, it's page seven. It's, I think, or anything that's not quite accurate, let me know, page eight, nine, Chris.
• Sarah's on there, Barry, Terry Mendes has asked if I had any response. It's my understanding, unless the three French bulldogs have had it, but I haven't had a letter regarding the Atlantic Bridge, and where that money was, why we haven't been able to spend it. So that's false. Go.
• Thank you. Okay, anything wrong on page nine? 10, 11, 11, Kelly.
• Can I just ask the point four, says about the addiction recovery agency. It was the part of the agenda where we were talking about the gambling licenses. I'd ask if the addiction recovery agency, which is the main agency for gambling, I think, saw people with that problem, could be added to the single point of access register. But I'm not sure if that's been done, 'cause that's not actually what the minutes say. So if I could just bring that up, thank you.
• Kelly, okay, we'll check on that. 11, that was, yeah, anything on page 12 and 13? No, I think I'll go back through it now for any matters of rise, and I've had a couple of whether they were wrong, but that's fine, anything matters of rise in page seven. Eight, nine, press again. Okay, we've got that one yet. 10, 11, 12, 13, and that's it, left length. Thank you. Did someone propose that the minutes of the meeting on the 40 of them were correct? James, seconder. Charles, you're name, right? Are we all in favor that they're all right? I'll just show, put your end up, we'll do, super. Thank you very much. Okay, come now to item five on our agenda, and this is a presentation of the Council Budget 24/25, presented by Gwyneth Dunliz. When they've done their presentation, Graham wishes to say a few words, and then I'll go initially through the group leaders, if possible, so each group leaders have a chance to talk, so that'll be Jason, Delith, Hugh, Irving, Hugh Heldich, and Martin, and then I'll open it up to the floor for the rest of the member, just if you want to say anything. So Gwyneth, the floor's yours, there. Thank you, Chairman. So, the process that has led us to this report, today, of setting a balanced budget, has been a long and difficult one this year. It's been a very uncomfortable process for all of us, and I must that by thanking all the members, you've all been so willing to contribute in workshops and all sorts of other meeting, and also for presenting ideas, for making savings. So, thank you all very much. The reason that it's been such an uncomfortable process, of course, is the fact that the cost of maintaining the Council Services have increased nearly £25 million since last year. It's a massive amounts, but we've got to remember that it's not a problem created by Dembyshire County Council. The Government in Westminster has chosen not to fund local government family, and this has caused a number of local authorities in England to have to submit a 1-4-1 notice, which is a notice of bankruptcy, knotting and booming and walking are the latest ones. But one in every five local authorities in England is scared that they'll have to do the same thing. In Wales, the financial situation is even worse because we don't receive a fair allocation of money from Westminster. Local authorities in Wales are facing a deficit of over $600 million in their budgets next year. And it's likely to be even worse the following year. So it's a major problem, a problem we've got to deal with, but it's not a membership problem, and it's important to remember that. Despite that, this county, Dembyshire, continues to educate our children, feed them in school, and supports them in so many other ways. We support adults and children through social service events. In the face of massive increase in the demand, we're also dealing with homelessness, which is increasing like we've never seen before. We have this rubbish, we've got library services, leisure services, highway services, and we've got thousands of other good things that we deliver. I think it's really important to remember this, and that we continue to be proud of all the good work that the county achieves every day, despite these massive barriers that we're facing. This process of trying to get a balanced budget has been difficult, not just for us as members, but also for the offices. There are a number of staff who have contributed to the ideas scheme, and those ideas have been looked into my heads of service at the moment to highlight more savings, hopefully, as we will have to do. And I must thank Liz and the finance team for their work, and also for the corporate management team, and the senior leadership team for their perseverance through this difficult process. I think they've done excellent work in including all of us in the process. So, turning to the budget. The additional cost of delivery services in 2024-25, compared to the previous year, is $24.7 million. The cost has increased for a number of reasons, but the most influential is general inflation, inflation in energy costs and salary inflation, and of course, the increase in the demand for frontline services. In order to present a balanced budget, we have got to ensure an increase in our income and in savings, which equate to the increase in cost. How do we find nearly £25 million in income increase and savings? The first part is to look at how much increase in income we've had from one's government, and we've had a more generous and expected allocation, and one of the highest in Wales, we've got to acknowledge that. But it only represents 27% of the increase in our costs. So, the other 73% we have got to find through savings and an increase in the council tax. In this budget, we are proposing savings worth £10.4 million, which is 42% of the increase and an increase in the council tax, which will be worth 7.6 million, which is the other 31%. We have tried to be balanced. This will mean that the council tax will increase 8.23%. And on top of that, they'll need to be an extra amount, 1.1% for the fire and rescue authority levy. Now, I am totally aware that an increase in council tax will be difficult for the residents of Denvershire. But it's important to remember that the council tax reduction scheme, which we'll be discussing later, does protect the most vulnerable. Over a period of two years, the increase in council tax will be slightly lower than inflation, even though we've seen such a demand, increasing the demand for our services. So, all the proposals in the report are vital for us to be able to set a balanced budget and also do the best we possibly can to protect the vulnerable in our communities. I think it's worth while repeating, we have got to set a balanced budget. And this budget offers that and it's trying to be fair between making savings and increasing council tax. We could have had a lower council tax increase, but we would then have to find more savings. On the other hand, we could reject the most controversial savings, but then the council tax would have to be increased over 20%. I believe that this budget offers a balanced choice, even though it's not a choice that any of us welcomes. There is a risk in this budget and it's important for me to draw your attention to that. The challenge that we're facing is higher than ever before. And that's true about the risks as well. There is a risk that there will be more of a demand for complex services as it has since the pandemic, with more demand for care services and more people facing homelessness. We've also said very ambitious savings targets ahead of service without knowing for certain what those savings will be, something that we have never done before. And this will need constant attention over the forthcoming months. This is the reason why we have got to protect our reserve funds and we've got to make sure that we don't spend more than planned. So to finish, I've got to acknowledge once again enormous amount of work done by everyone to reach where we are today with a balanced budget to present you. A few months ago, I didn't think that would be possible. I do acknowledge and it's important to acknowledge that there's a risk involved with this budget. There's a lot of work to be completed but it's necessary for us to agree this budget today because things will be much much worse if we cannot agree on a balanced budget. We need to start on the work of transforming the Council because the prospects for the next few years are as bad if not worse than this issue. So even though it's likely that you are annoyed as I am and cabinet members are that we've got to present a budget like this to you, I do ask you to support this budget. Thank you very much, Chair. I would like to ask Liz now to summarize the details in the report and answer any questions arising. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you Gwyneth. Good morning, everyone. Yes, so as Gwyneth mentioned, just to take you through a little bit of the detail. So we received the provisional settlement from Welsh Government on the 20th of December last year. We had been assuming a 3% increase in funding and in cash terms, we've actually been given a 3.6% increase. That's roughly a million more than what we were expecting, which overall is positive, but it doesn't materially change the Council's budgetary position or the financial outlook of the Council. We haven't been given an indication of what the future years settlements, which has helped us with planning in the past, so we don't know what the percentage is going to be for the future. And both the UK and Welsh governments will set their final budgets after the Council's has set its and we won't receive the final settlements. That's not expected until early March. So some years ago, we used to get settlements in October, a provisional settlement in October, and then a final settlement in December, and that was well in time for setting the Council's budgets. So when these timelines were pushed back to December and to March and our budget fell in between, we introduced an additional recommendation in the budget report. So that's to delegate authority to the head of finance and order in consultation with the lead member for finance to adjust the use of cash reserves included in the budget proposals by up to 500,000 if there is movement between the draft and final settlement figures in order to allow the setting of the Council tax in a timely manner. So that limit of 500,000 is currently included in recommendation 3.4 of the report, and it's set at 500,000. That limit has not changed for a number of years, but also as a result of the UK government announcement at the back end of last week, which provided additional funding for increased demands and the cost of providing social care in English Councils. There is likely to be some consequential for Wales, though we do not have any certainty around what that's likely to be. There's therefore a higher probability of seeing a change that's outside of our control between the draft and the final settlements, which we need to make sure that we can accommodate within the Council's constitutions while setting the Council tax in a timely manner. So my recommendation is that the Council that we increase that limit up to a million, that will be sufficient to cope with all eventualities without being excessive, a million equates to just 0.4% of Councils at 165 million being asked to set this morning. So after Graham's book and perhaps I'll come to Gary's and I'll be able to handle that situation, which only happened last week that we need to deal with today. So that's the appendix 1 of the report, page 29. That's the medium term financial plan for the next three years and the proposal for setting a balanced budget today. So we're bringing forward a base budget of 251 million. That needs to increase for inflation and pressures of 24.5 million, many of which are outside the Council's control. We're proposing to reduce that by the savings total and those savings combined to 10.4 million to bring a revised budget of just under 265 million. That's balanced by the additional funding from Welsh Government of getting on for 7 million and the additional yield in the Council tax as Gwyneth has outlined. Major savings proposal, so these are our strategic proposals are listed in appendix 2. The estimated level of savings that is sufficiently developed in order to deliver savings in 24, 25 total 2.4 million. We've been discussing these proposals for some months now. There are others still under development. They're included on that list, which we will continue to bring forward following the process that we've established. So that's the corporate executive team for initial discussion, then informal meetings of the corporate executive team and cabinet before a report and discussions at a team's meetings for all members before any final decisions are taken at an appropriate level. The non-strategic savings are listed in appendix 3. These are the estimated list, so that those estimated list of savings total 2.3 million. As they explained to you at the workshop that we had in Denby some months ago and these are the equivalent of the efficiency savings, the 1% efficiency savings that the Council has been making for some years as part of its budget setting process. I issued members with further details and confidence around some of those proposals last week so that you've got the details of what they are. Despite the efforts in finding efficiencies, savings, reductions in cost and services to date through the major savings proposals through the non-strategic savings, unfortunately, given the scale of the financial challenge this year, that isn't sufficient to set a balanced budget. So, each head of service was issued for savings target to find. Heads of service knew that this was coming, they've been working on them since and they know they need to be delivered as soon as practical. They total 3 million, but each head of service is clear what level of savings they need to find. One of the major savings proposals on that list is the voluntary exit scheme. We haven't assumed any savings from this scheme in either the major savings proposals list or the non-strategic savings list. So, every service will make savings as a result of that scheme. The corporate executive team is making the final decisions following a review of all business cases that have been submitted by heads of service and these savings will go some way to delivering the bulk of that 3 million that we need to find. It is important to remember, though, that steps have been introduced in the year to reduce the level of expenditure. We've slowed down recruitments, we're carrying more vacancies than we have previously, so it will be possible to make savings by deleting some of those posts and services have also been reviewing fees and charges to see where they can raise additional incomes and there are restructures and many other things ongoing as we work through different ways to reduce cost and to reach the 3 million savings that we've included. The total savings and a 10.4 million, that's 7.7 million without the schools figure, that is a significant level of savings to deliver in a single year. I've gone back to 2010-11 and I can't see a year when it has been bigger. We can't deliver that level of savings without affecting frontline services. The scale of it is just too big. There will always need to be an efficient back office function. Having said that, as you would expect, the back office, the support service have been making more savings than frontline savings. I've done some analysis. Broadly, support services, savings on the 23-24 budgets combined are around about the 10% mark compared with a 4% savings on all of the frontline services, so I thought it was helpful just to set that context. Schools, it's an increase in funding for schools' budgets to cover pay inflation, energy inflation and other inflationary increases, and includes the funding for the increase in the teacher's pension, means there's an additional 7.6 million going into the school's budget. The school's budget is our largest budget, although we want to protect it, we cannot protect it in its entirety. The scale is just too big, so it's reasonable to expect schools to make some savings, and 3% has been included. After the increases and the reduction, they net off, and there'll be an increase of just under 5 million going into schools, that's 5.82% increase overall on the school's budget. We have been communicating regularly to schools throughout this year. They've been told to plan between 2 and 4%, we've modelled 3% for them in the 3-year budgetary figures that we give to them, and schools have been planning for this. That leads then to a council tax recommendation, as Gwyneth has outlined, for council services of 8.23%. The fire levy after the reduction that was made at the meeting last week is at 1.1%, so that's the contribution from council tax to fund the increase in the fire levy. That brings us overall to a 9.34% council tax level being recommended. The Band D equivalent, as outlined in the report, is an increase of £143 per year, and brings the total to £1,679 overall. Council service is £126 of that, and the fire is £17. I wanted to mention reserves. A council has had to use reserves in in-year to fund all the spends recently, so in the financial year 2022, 23, and 23, 24. We plan to use reserves to fund exit costs. That's both voluntary and compulsory. There are some compulsory redundancies in the proposals outlined. These are one-off costs, and so it makes sense to use reserves for this purpose, so that savings then can be made by the services in full from year one. We're also planning to use reserves for the review of the pay grade that's necessary over the next couple of years. That's a considerable use of reserves. It's necessary, given the financial challenge, but we must remember we can only use reserves once. They should only be used to fund one-off type of costs, and an over-reliance on reserves is not sustainable. We need to protect reserves, to mitigate the risks that winners outlined, and for future resilience. I would advise against any further use of reserves given the higher level of risks that are being faced. Winethas lead members' rights point out the higher level of risk in this year's budgets. There's a savings to be found of three million. The heads of service are working on delivering that as soon as practical, and the voluntary exit scheme that will help us get to that, and a number of other initiatives that are ongoing. The savings target at 7.6 million is considerable. We will need to strengthen financial management in the year to track how we're delivering those savings on a monthly basis, and we'll need to report that to you as members regularly. That will enable us to identify any issues at an early stage so we can take prompt action as we move forward. Forecasting cost pressures in certain areas has been really challenging. Areas like social care and homelessness. We've used latest forecasts of demand, but that comes with risk. So we've tried to be prudent where we can to build in some resilience, so things like the levels of pay that we've budgeted for. They're above where some analyst thinks inflation is going to be, so it's hopeful that we'll provide some resilience in the budgets. I think it's important when we're taking decisions for 24-25, we need to consider the medium-term position. That has worsened over as we've gone through this year. It's worsened. So 25-26 and 26-27 financial years look worse. You'll see that in the medium-term financial plan and compared with 24-25. We're not anticipating an increase in funding from whilst government over those years, if anything it looks like it's going to be slightly negative, and that coincides with increased demand for services and therefore increase in our cost pressures. So even assuming council tax increase at a modest level of 3.8 per cent of both those years, there's a gap already of 15 million and 13 million respectively in 25-26 and in 26-27. And we have to bear that in mind as we set the 24-25 budgets. This budget is an ongoing process. We need to understand what we know now and what we don't. We've got to remember a budget is a financial plan. It will need to be adapted as we go through the year and we won't know every detail now. But it's now, now is the time that we need to set the 24-25 budget and that has to be done for council tax purposes. So we can inform residents and arrange to collect council tax in a timely way and in line with the council tax legislation. But I want to assure you that the work on the budget doesn't stop. It continues. We need to refine our savings proposal and we need to make sure we continue to communicate with you as members and follow those processes that we have developed over the past few months. I just wanted to thank everybody involved for their work to date to get us to this point, both members and officers and in particular I wanted to thank Steve God who's done a lot of this work before I came into post so I wanted to thank Steve. And then finally at the scale of the financial challenges made this year particularly difficult, I think we've taken a strategic and coordinated approach to the budget setting, taking a realistic view of what the demands and the pressures are. We've made strategic and major savings needed due to the scale of the challenge but that has been balanced against finding further non-strategic savings to ensure that we're as lean and as efficient in our processes that we can be. Thank you. Thank you Liz. I'll ask Graham to be next on my list now please Graham. Don't you? Thank you. So just a few words from me before you go to the important part of discussion and questions and I'm sure there'll be lots of those. I think it goes without saying that this is the most difficult and challenging budget that I've known that we've had to set after many years in local government and I have to say that the prospects for next year are not much brighter. So this is a budget not only for next year but will lay the foundations for the budget for the year after so the decisions we make now are important not only just in the media at the short term but the medium term as well. I'm not going to obviously repeat everything that's already being said but we have worked hard to protect schools as far as we possibly can. We think we're in a reasonable and sensible position with the school's budget. We're also providing an additional 10 million pounds for social care to cover for an ever increasing demand in social care. That's an additional 10 million pounds that we're putting into social care and that represents a significant additional funding in those frontline services that supports our most vulnerable people in our communities. To help pay for that additional funding and cover other pressures which Liz has mentioned we've clearly had to make savings and efficiencies elsewhere and we've looked across all service areas to look for those savings and efficiencies. And as Liz has said we have tried to do this in a coordinated and strategic way by looking at everything that we do to make the necessary savings and limit their impact. But of course there is always an impact when we're making savings and they can't all come from back office. There needs to be an element of an efficient running of the council in order for us to be able to deliver those frontline services. So we've tried to the pain to some degree has been spread and this has involved some members are clear on this deleting a number of vacant posts and as Liz has said some of that's gone on in year because of the financial pressures we've faced this year and that will help us into next year. Some compulsory redundancies and of course you want to avoid that wherever we can and also we've got the voluntary redundancy scheme as well again that Liz has mentioned. So the savings are broadly being categorized into major savings and non-strategic savings and you've got those lists today but we shared those lists with members previously over a number of months. And the very scale of the pressures and the wide ranging packages of savings that we've had to pull together has meant it's not been an easy budget to communicate to members and we hear that and we understand some of the concerns that members have had around the way we've tried to present it. It's not been an easy task and as ever we will try and improve and do better in future years. So we have heard some of those references from members but I just want to recap on our engagement with members because we have tried hard in that engagement process. We've had the member suggestion scheme of course which we're still working through. We had a number of suggestions from members. There's been attendance at group meetings. We've had 13 hours of budget workshops over the time, 13 hours of budget workshops or reminds you that Steve ran one in July which was a virtual meeting in October. We had a hybrid meeting here in November, a four-hour meeting at Denby Town Hall in which all the heads of service attended and gave presentations in December. We were here in County Hall in Rithin for another long meeting with a number of presentations and sharing information and as recently as a few weeks ago here in January here we had another hybrid meeting that will always be known as the graph of the year meeting for those of you who don't remember that. So in addition to the five-budget workshops we've had eight virtual meetings. Each one of those meetings has lasted about an hour and each one of those virtual meetings has discussed in detail some of those major savings proposals on that list that we shared with you. So in total that's over 21 hours of direct engagement with members in our attempts to try and explain what is a very complicated and wide ranging budget. And as we've said the scale of the change and setting this year's budget is actually more than a process than an event. So in previous years we've come and it's all been nicely tied up and we can say at this point here is the budget but because of certain unknowns and because of the scale of the changes it's clear that not every element of this 260 million pound budget not every pound not every element has been fully nailed down and that is inevitable given the scale of change and I think Liz has explained that. So there are still some details to be resolved in this budget we understand that. So it's not a budget without risks but we are confident we have mitigated against those risks and again Liz has given some of that detail but what I want to do is underline a commitment that I've given previously and I'll do it again today is a commitment to continue to engage with members through those budget workshops and those team's meetings and any other engagement that members come to us and make suggestions for and that might be attending group meetings etc. So I can see more workshops and more briefings in the near future we've got a number already kind of lined up and some of those invites will be going out. And we need those workshops because we need to work through those bits of this budget that we're about to set need to be nailed down so we need those workshops with members so you're fully informed but also we need workshops to go beyond just next year's budget because we've talked about the pressures that are in the future and the need to talk about some transformation of the Council and that's not for today that is for the future over the coming weeks and months once we've managed to put this budget to bed but there is a commitment that members will be involved and engaged in more workshops about how we can do things differently. So that's me Chair I just want to pull some of those strands together and I think the probably important thing is to go into the debate and discussion but there's probably just one thing that's still hanging out there which is that one of the amendments to the recommendations. With that thank you thank you very much. Graeme if you'd allow me to listen to the lead members of the group member leaders first then we'll go to your amendment on 3/4 as is that's all right. So I'll listen to group leaders now please Jason I've got you first. Diox Chair thank you I'll be brief actually because I think a lot of what I've said has been said already and as Graeme said it's important that all of us as members have the debate today. So I just want to just briefly before the budget I want to welcome James to the first council meeting welcome James. I want to touch on the the other earlier discussions and increase for the work on the purpose of that in police station of course our late friend Pete Prendergast. I thank Terry for his comments on the work that Barry did and I want to continue the theme of saying look we can work together and we can do more than influence we can deliver for our communities and those are the good examples of us doing that so it would be we miss not for me to mention that and so the budget and of course the first thing I want to do is thank Liz and all of the the team finance team as you mentioned Steve I was thanks Steve as well and thank you again for coming in at a relatively late stage in what has been rightly described as this most unprecedented and the most challenging budget setting processes. I want to thank Gwyneth as the lead member who's worked extremely hard on this budget. I will mention all of the groups in one minute but we're applied and Labor Coalition and Gwyneth has taken on this role as lead member and done an excellent job and I think that reflects the strong partnership that we have in our coalition. So here we are here we are to decide on the budget this moment has been a long time coming it's been a long process it's been as I've said the most challenging and totally unprecedented situation that we find ourselves in but during that process there's been good strong debate there's been good strong challenge from all members and that's welcome that's a good thing that shows the spread of our democracy. We've had disagreements and we've heard those disagreements I want to say how brilliant it is that every single one of us is here and I have lots of them here in person and everyone on the screen and I know that many of us then many of us have made a real effort a real real effort to get here today so for those who've done that I want to say thank you thank you very much. Now we all come from different perspectives we all come from different traditions we all come from different parts of the county and a lot of us all come from different political parties but I can guarantee one thing today one thing that we are all agreed on we can all agree that none of us none of us in the room want to vote for these savings these efficiencies I'll call them what they are cuts nobody wants to vote for these cuts okay I certainly don't as a labor politician I walked into the labor party office in Liverpool as an idealistic student in 1988 I didn't think I'd be have a career in politics and I didn't think I'd be presenting a budget which had to deal with a situation where we find ourselves without the funding to balance a budget without making these efficiencies these cuts okay we've all discussed at length as to why we are here we're not as mentioned it in her opening remarks you all know what I believe in so I won't repeat it but I believe I'm right I believe there's reasons why we are here decisions made elsewhere and I think the people I think people and the public are seeing that and getting it because of what we're seeing happening to councils in England the recent announcement about more money that in itself explains that the government is recognizing it has been the shortfall I I believe I'm right it's the reasons why we are here but nevertheless you know we are now find ourselves faced with the budget faced with these papers in front of you faced with making these extremely difficult decisions we've heard from excuse me we've heard from Gwyneth and about brilliant things that this council does we've really touched on how we delivered a police station to Staten Island and rescue partly rescue the bus servicing in Clandag Leeler that's just the tip of the iceberg we had children we look after our elderly and infirm and this budget is presented in a way to protect those services we've heard about the pressures we we are under from forces in our society it's a difficult world out there and we're at the front line of dealing with those societal problems and we're doing a good job we have to deliver those vital services to do that we have to present a balanced budget this budget here today does that in these unprecedented times we cannot afford to not vote for this budget that is the uncomfortable truth that is the harsh reality so given where we are given the journey we've been on and again I'll thank everyone for their involvement and their participation in that process given where we are today we must vote for this budget thank you Jason um I'll now ask Delis to contribute thank you thank you I'll give you a little opportunity to put your headset on because I'll be speaking in Welsh in the first instance can I thank you for the opportunity to stand up and speak on behalf of myself and applied camera group in a meeting which is difficult for each and every one of us there's have already referred that it's not a membership problem it's a problem across the whole country and across Wales and the UK as you know as a member of applied company you can imagine what my political attitude is on this but I support what Gwyneth has said I feel we've got to work together on this issue it's very very important we're able to do so so there are decisions made far away from this country which have led us to this situation that we have got to deal with very challenging decisions none of us least of all myself I was persuaded to stand as a county councilor without considering that I would have to deal with this type of decision but we have got to deal with it and it's I would do see I believe today to be honest and fair with our residents and our staff and everybody who works for us it's important for them to be aware of the situation that we face and that we are presenting that fairly and transparently I would like to thank the cabinet and the three members of applied camera, Councillor Emri Swain, Councillor Jesus Thomas and especially Councillor Gwyneth Ellis for their work in the partnership with Labor Group I know how much has been happening in meetings behind the scenes and in cabinet meetings there's been challenging there's been questions there's been debate through the questioning and unprecedented challenging has been happened and I know that that's been happening as part of this process of getting to this budget that's being presented here today thank you also to Liz and the finance team and to Steve Gann. Previously I would like to thank you about how thorough and how clearly you have explained the whole process I am not a financial person but I've been able to follow and understand and question and that's down to you and the way that you've been able to transfer this very complicated information to us so I can't thank you enough for that I would also like to thank the officers for having the flexibility to adapt in the way that you've dealt with us with members by giving us plenty of opportunity to ask questions and to challenge the decisions that have been made through the various workshops a large number of workshops have been held so thank you officers for the flexibility that you've shown by adapting things as we move on and hopefully that'll help us to make a wise decision today I do feel that it's I would do see today to try and get the balance none of us want to make cuts and as Jason said they are cuts we can't hide away from that they are cuts but we've got to try and get the balance so that we can continue to offer the services that we as a county should be very proud of and that we seek to continue to offer those to the best we can with the scarce resources which are becoming even more scarce I won't draw your attention to individual elements others have already done that I know that we as members will need to continue to challenge so be ready for that officer there will be further challenging there will be difficult questions raised but I think that's our work that's why we're here so we wouldn't be doing our duty and fulfilling our rule if we did do that and we will be doing some moving forward as we've already heard from others and I'd like to thank Terry and he's I'm working together we can succeed and we can offer the very best we can but it's only through working together that that will happen that we provide a new light to different so I think it is our duty today to be responsible to be sensible to continue to question this budget but to support what's been done to date I have got a question that I wanted to ask about the additional allocation this 600 600 000 million in England and will that have an impact in our stand the line thank you thank you Deli thank you Deli so there was an announcement so to clarify there was an announcement made by UK government last week it was an additional 600 million to English councils a hundred million of that is to do with grants 500 million of that is to do with the pressures here for social care we understand there is likely to be a Welsh government consequential what that consequential is is unclear it's around about the 25 million but Welsh governments understand there may be negative consequential to some other earlier budgetary decisions they won't know until the UK government is set and that doesn't happen until the 6th of match there are discussions ongoing as you can imagine the Welsh government will have to make a decision as to what they do with that consequential so although it comes down on social care there is a decision for Welsh government to make as to what they do with it is in their gift to be able to decide they may give additional funding to councils but they may feel there is a need for additional money for example in the health service that's their decision to make so that's the first unknown they need to take that decision should they decide to allocate a consequential to councils and through to local governments that could be done in a number of ways it may go into the settlements so it could be it could improve the settlements so you could have a higher settlement than the provisional to to the final or they may decide to allocate it as an additional grant in year so it's unclear as to how that will work if it goes into the settlement there are calls for some authorities have received a floor there's some calls for the the floor to be increased to protect some authorities Denver should then would not gain as much were they're not a floor it's just the the mathematics of it and then also we don't know whether this is recurring or one-off funding I don't think anybody is clear on that yet so there is some way to go on this decision so it might be positive but in the scale of things 25 million across Wales again isn't going to make a substantial difference to the numbers we've got in front of us today and there is a requirement on us to move forward so that we can set council tax we can inform residents and that we can deal with that so that's the reason more behind the need to increase that recommendation from the 500 000 to the million there's a chance but again it's it's if buts and maybe's and we don't know what this stage and we need to wait and see thank you Liz thank you Dallas you want to you now you are things sorry there's no two years but you are the first but for the good good morning and everybody thank you Gwyneth for your budget and thank you Liz for your brilliant exposition I would say on the mechanics of it I find it really impressive and how gratifying that you're here today to sit by the lead member and actually tell us face to face how much better that is than over the screen thank you I am going to present a differing view point when I'm going to present it with respect and I'm not I may say something that is critical but it's with respect but first I need to ask a question before I go too far we need a balances contribution this year correct that balancing word does that balance's contribution come from so do you mean a contribution from reserves yes where do those it's where is the money in those is it what is the money in those reserves that you're going to now utilize in this budget what was it therefore so as the budget is it set out in that appendix there is no contribution from reserves in order to balance the budgets there is a planned use of reserve though in order to achieve those savings through things like redundancies both through the voluntary exit and also through compulsory there is also a planned use of reserves for the pay and the grading restructure that needs to be done but no firm decision to be taken around that yet where is the planned use that I heard discussed somewhere in all this that there is a reserve fund earmarked for the clued pension fund in the event that they need support so to clarify that so there is a so in a member workshop I don't think it's in the detail of that is in the report or isn't made possibly in a so there is a reserve that's labeled superannuation recovery it's so to clarify it's not to support the clued pension fund the clued pension fund is okay important that I stress that because we're in a public meeting and this is to do with support so staff the the bulk of staff that we employ our members of the clued pension fund uh and denisher is a part of that along with rexam and flincher we set contributions employer contributions and that's done on a on a tri-annual basis so every three years so in the recent three years that we've just gone through those contributions came down and it was part of the savings of how we were able to balance the current year's budget but sometimes they go up and in recent history they've always been going up and there's been a deficit on the fund overall but only should everybody retire tomorrow that we needed to work through so what was done some years ago was there was an opportunity to create a reserve should that increase come at some point in the future in order for us to be able to increase the contributions without unduly affecting the budget it gave us some time so that reserve was set aside for that purpose the situation is now different so we're now able to repurpose that reserve to use it for a different reason and the reason is suggested in the report is to fund uh exit costs and also to fund the pay and grading structure if we need so if you like it's still a it's a general pay reserve and we're able to set it aside for a different purpose to what it is thank you i may refer to that in my uh notes here if i get the terminology wrong i'm sorry it's complex but you'll have to bear with me i'm not insulting anybody so as briefly as i can now we must look to our two previous budgets 22 23 was brought in by the previous administration when the preceptor is showed up by something in the region of a 1.2 million pound contribution from reserves i have to just mention that our lead member was then a backbencher who argued against a argued against this preferring a zero percentage rate increase and the budget fought short fall therefore to be fully funded from reserves thankfully a majority view prevailed and this was not allowed by members or our situation today would be would be far worse 23 24 this member is now the lead member for finance and continued this policy by overseeing a budget restricting the rise in preset last year or to 3.8 percent by a significant rate on reserves in any event this hasn't proved sufficient because we still have an here three million pound deficit requiring a second rate in this financial year that budget was defective because the preceptor is far too low because the foresight to recognize ongoing threats was not apparent within the cabinet and the membership and very few members spotted this preferring the much more attractive political option of having one of the lowest rate rises in Wales and sadly this gambit has failed spectacular and that's part of the reason why we're here today 24 25 now we're not in a financial storm we're in a hurricane and there are massive demands for our services but we can't balance the books and why because if i understand that Liz correctly the usable reserves are all but wiped out by someone in the region of eight million pounds over two years all that can be produced as Liz has just done very well in trying to explain to me this funds quite properly set aside that as part of this superannuation reserve did you call it i'm not quite sure but i believe that is indefensible rating those sorts of funds is indispensable to use funds set aside in case they're needed superannuation may not be wrong i wonder if it could be legally challengeable now this budget demands that heads of service seek further savings and the documents are circulated this weekend telling us that reserves will not be utilized in 25 26 as i understand this in my limited financial mind if this budget goes through there won't be any any any any way to use a draconian list of cuts accompanied it i feel it's unprofessional to present us through this at this very last moment and i'm sad that the chief executive allowed it now if we can't balance the books today what should we do and there's about 28 days left to do it well i'm going to present a differing viewpoint with respect that the chief executive and the head of finance sit down with the leader and the finance lead and quite simply they create two boxes into number one goes statutory services plus front line and essential services and into number two goes everything else unthinkable i know things such as green issues active travel all those committees and working parties that we sit on support for outside bodies etc etc but we just have to put our house in order first and the head of finance will keep the council aware of progress through the year and then advise which of these projects can then be afforded we must prioritize our spending we must stop living in a difficult world when we try to do everything for everybody if we approve this budget today we do nobody any favors we may avoid commissioners this year but with everything gone including the money for that superannuation reserve they could conceivably be at the dawn next year there's nothing to keep gained by throwing our final reserves down a black hole never to be seen again and very little gained except a little time i believe this budget is a triumph of hope over reality i ask members to set aside political affiliations and reject it there are 28 days for reality to kick in and save this county's future so members please do the right thing reject these proposals cabinet start looking into the essential and desirable boxes let's avoid the commissioner journey but please financial common sense must start today sadly i will have to vote against this budget thank you do you want to respond i don't mind if you don't want to i'm not bothered yes dear let's leave sorry no no i i'll quickly respond here um and and you know thank you for your contribution and i did take it in the respectful manner that that you intended so thank you for that um what i will say is i think we've already discussed in numerous uh workshops and so on about the the difficulty with statutory services and frontline and needed services and putting things in these boxes of things that are absolutely necessary and things that are not is incredibly difficult to define and if you if you did have those two boxes and asked every member in this room to put services in the necessary or the unnecessary box i think you'd at the end of it i'm a very full necessary box and an almost empty unnecessary box because you know that's what people think lots of what we do is necessary and very very important isn't it um so you're right that we need to avoid going down the route of not having a balanced budget that's the most important thing we don't want commissioners to to get involved in my opinion the only option we've got to do that now is to pass this budget but to look in real detail over the next year as as we've already mentioned on you know the savings proposals how they're being implemented and how we as Graham wants to do how we're moving forwards and and that's that's vitally important i will ask those just to come in on on the detail of the reserves thank you for the the comments and the questions um not sure i like the tone of being called and professional in my first budget meeting do you find that somewhat insulting if i'm being honest i say that with respect um so to clarify a couple of points um the 23 24 budget the current year's budget council tax was sat at 3.8 percent did not require any use of reserves if you look at the cabinet papers that are produced every month that it's detailed in there how we balanced the 23 24 budget there is no mention of the use of reserves and how we balance the 23 24 budget so there there has been no use of reserves in 23 24 so it's important i clarify that uh in terms of uh the legal challenge about what's being proposed in this year's budgets there's mention of the superannuation recovery that reserve stands at 3.6 million it's included in the what we call or deem the eomact reserves they are eomact for specific purposes and it's perfectly reasonable and legal to be able to decide and change what that is eomact for so there is no legal challenge around what this budget plans in terms of use of reserves um it is we set reserves aside for risks and difficult times i think it's entirely appropriate for planned use of reserves in order to set a balanced budget through a difficult period we're not using all the reserves the report mentioned there's a need to protect those reserves in order to mitigate the risks that we've got in front of us um so it's a controlled use of reserves making sure that we protect as much as possible for the risks that lie ahead thank you thank you Liz you held it chug i've got you next on it i'm sorry sorry just to add that up i just refer to the report members can read it themselves at 4.5.1 because there seemed to be a suggestion that we were frittering away all the reserves and to use all the reserves yet the report is really clear the current convention is to keep a minimum a five million pound unmarked reserve to meet any unforeseen costs and pressures unexpected events outside the council's control it would be imprudent to plan to use the first five million of this reserve the report is clear that we're not frittering away all the reserves the report in front of you is clear that we are to retain a minimum of five billion pounds of reserves just need to make that absolutely clear because it's in the report thank you thank you very much for growing for that one you back to you mate um thank you chair for an hour um first of all one of that thank Jason for actually once and for all saying they are cut because all we've been doing are the last few months is window dressing that they're not cuts so thank you Jason for being upfront and honest on that i also want to just pick up something dally said my duty is to do what's best for my residents in rithin not to vote for a budget for the sake of it so i just i think we all have a duty in answer to our residents we don't have a duty just to vote for something do you want to make that point abundantly clear and i do take um the positive of tarry and bary mela working together dream team um the police working together i think that's fantastic we can do that but we all have to have the same vision and have the same core beliefs at that time to be able to achieve that and i think this is why maybe on this budget there are different views um i mean me and Gwyneth had this debate last year when i voted against the budget and i and i again asked how how we got to the figure the 3.8 and i got i think you quote you told me berneth i threw my toys out the crown i think you is what you said to me um but maybe i was right to do so uh looking at the the deficit where we're at uh now and i think we have to stop this i want i've sat here this morning listening to everyone thanking everyone thanking officers thanking members thank you cabinet members the reality is it's the job guys people are paid to do the job and and the buck stops regarding the buck stops with the cabinet you are paid as cabinet members and it's not a blame game of wedstman stood against whales or whatever it has to stop we are here doing the job for dembership residents and let's keep that focus on them we knew we're looking you've we've had to hide one of the highest in Wales locally yeah and maybe that is a great help that it is a label ed uh counsel that we've had that and if that's the case brilliant thank you mr dreightford oh all right come down um and we're looking at the budget yeah and we have had engagement dream i can't knock you we've asked and you've listened um and maybe not the outcomes that we wanted but you know that's we all have different views on my breeze or whatever it may be but what we're looking at here is a council tax run with less services that's the bottom line if you pay a membership you always ask what's in it for me and what you have been now is you're paying out more and getting less and that's a difficult pill which i referred to in cabinet on uh was it Tuesday last week but Gwyneth always says we've got a set of balance budget but this isn't a balanced budget this is a vote to get the council tax invoices out on time that's what this is because you haven't got a balanced budget you've got a three million gap in this budget you've got a pressure on the reserves and Graham says it's in the paper yeah it is on page 21 is it penny what 4.55 the council has and will have to utilize reserves available to fund first one 1.6 million second 3.2 excess scheme we don't even know where the figures are most of the last one additional costs over and above the 1.7 pressure so you're asking this council to vote on something that's not balanced and we can't do that and there's no duty to do that if the budget is not balanced we cannot support it and this is absolutely not a balanced budget i understand the difficulties and i have empathy with everyone but this is a paper exercise to get the bill vote on time and not do the right things for people at then be sure i know where can we vote for this because it's not balanced thank you do you want to respond again go ahead please thank you i'm going to answer in Welsh if you don't mind you're totally correct in saying that what we're offering here of proposing is increasing council tax and the level of services will increase Jason and said cuts i am going to disagree with you that we haven't referred to them as cuts before we have we do the well-being impact assessment and they're all coming out negative and we've said that over and over and over and we don't want to do it we don't want to be in this situation but we haven't got the money but we've got to find that 25 million pounds somehow by increasing the council tax and by making cuts and increasing income through charges and so on so i do not agree with you on that you mentioned that this is not a balanced budget but once again it is we acknowledge that there is risk because we don't know exactly what the savings will be so we don't know exactly how much savings will and in some things we elements we don't know what the savings will be but it is balanced because we know how many savings how much savings we need to do and we're ready to do them the reserve you mentioned they are going for one-off costs so that our recurrent costs are brought down and that is sensibly use of reserves that's all i've got to say thank you thank you very much goodness i'll finish them with martin and then i'll go to the amendment for three four you got my martin next and please thank you chair yeah this this feels like a blood from a stone budget you know we've been squeezing these stones for for years and years and it's getting harder and harder to find to balance the budget i do feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel here it might be lithe with a torch and another graph but either way that's still that's still exciting um but i think i think there is a way through this um i think it's been really difficult and frustrating for us all because not one of us ever wants to make a cut nobody wants to take anything away um i think we've talked about what is statutory and what isn't um and i was satisfied that it's not as it's not as easy as that um you know something might not be statutory but it might have huge impacts from taking it away it's it's a it's a complicated thing to do that um we've we've discussed about starting from bare bones and then adding on what we can afford but i don't think that's practical um i do feel like we've been all being involved in this process we've had we've had opportunity to scrutinize and take it through scrutiny we've had opportunity to make sure the impact of all being identified that are minimized and where possible mitigated um and we've all had opportunity to suggest alternatives um it's not easy you can tell it's not easy because there haven't been loads of suggestions coming forward on what we should do instead and i think we need to we need to think about this now we we know we're in a difficult position and and just just criticizing and and staying we're disgusted and cut is not going to help us or the residents of denbyshire get through this we need to be constructive in the way we we make criticism here i think to mention the climate change strategy the emergency that we've declared i still feel that we're taking this very seriously i'd be selfish of me to stand here and demand that there were no cuts to that program i i don't feel we had enough money to spend on that program in the first place but i think we've got we've got the whale at denbyshire to take it seriously and do as much as we can with the resources available to us so you know it's it's by us all pitching in and making sure those resources are directed as efficiently as possible we can do the best with what we've got we can't take a short-term view and and just you know cut things now we've got to keep looking this the future i think there's like the end of this tunnel i'll support this budget because you know i i'm gonna i'm going to trust in the process you put forward and i'll back it and i'll contribute where i can and and you know i think before we all pitch in fingers crossed we'll get there thank you thank you very much Martin all right i'd like just to we'll ask my second in command our third in command i'm not in command of anything no whatever my brain how do we amend three four then okay well it's um as i understand it um from lizards explanation um effectively three point four would stay as is other than the number so uh the number would change from 500k to a million uh so um you would need somebody to propose that amendment and that would be to amend three point four to read uh to your proposal we've got a seconder jay and that cancel out and james if i just confirm that what the wording will be then it would be to delegate authority to the head of finance in order in consultation with the lead member of finance to reduce the use of to adjust apologies the use of cash reserves included in the budget proposals by up to one million pounds if there is movement between the draft and final settlement figures in order to allow the setting of council tax in the time and manner so that's been moved and proposed okay that's okay it's been uh we just i'll throw a show of hands but we agree with that i think i don't think we need to go and vote in anywhere do we know okay so that's fantastic that's clearly the judge i think that's if anyone's again oh sorry if anyone against no abstentions abstentions nope i told you he was my brain so i mean thank you thank you very much right i shall open this to the floor now unfortunately yes i will um mark Young's first on my list yes you are don't know how yeah vote and good okay chair well uh thank you and i'm going to have no problem thanking people where i think it's due so uh Liz not only professional but i i was involved in emails going out at one o'clock in the morning of the weekend so thank you but i hope everyone's looking after you they're obviously doing a lot of hours and uh stepping in so shortly you do not move that thank you but it's important so i've got no problem with that now to the difficult stuff so i'm going to touch on a few services don't take a person i'm going to touch on roads libraries and i just want to talk about the collective impact of the cuts i've mentioned it to uh lead officer Tony Ward i want to talk about that because i think it's important i will definitely have a copy with anyone afterwards but i will remind a chief of decking councilor harvest their terms by the copies okay so i just want to talk about so we are asking for more and the cut and proposals have come from come through one at a time but if i was walking through then be uh vale street we know needs doing and the road at the top and we know we're not going to have money for a while i get to the library which could be cut is going to be and it could be shut i jump in me carna go to the council offices in town which argan and then i drive down to the car park if i saw it's a park and one of the car parks is proposed to be closed i jump out and think before i find it's a way to park i go to lube and they're going to be closed and then a walk around to find a toilet and the town halls under you know under the future that's not clear so i just want a commitment of the chief exec of the economy is important isn't it whether you're sensor right or left growing the economy is the way out of this and some people quote 10% increase 20 to the economy what we have to make sure that the feeling of towns it feels like they're open and not closed so i know it's a difficult one and most of it's been really busy but it's that collective impact some towns we might have to just cause it a bit short but i'm yeah don't turn you mica i won't be long i won't be long so which i mentioned to tony i think it's really important we don't want then be town or any town to feel like the close i had stopped running the towns were busy we were busy and it's that impact of that i want to think i know we're doing it and we're looking for money and they're coming through but that collective approach i have like a commitment off the chief exec to look at that and if the impacts are too hard we're going to have to change the direction for the economy and support business is important the last one on schools i've said this many times i was in a meeting last week i'm a chair of governors and we know it's difficult but going forward most secretary schools are in deficit and overspending you clearly got a saving there no one wants it as we say but the savings there so we got to save a deficit plus nearly three million that doesn't sound doable so i'm going to push back and say how's it work when we've got a service which is overspending in deficit going forward and we're asking for the saving for the balanced budget so just those two please and uh jockey bell thank you thank you mac do you want to kick in first yeah i'll go first you'll go great in the order it was it was asked yeah of course um so mark straight question uh do i give a commitment that we support our uh local towns and the local economy yes is the is the short answer that let's not of course we still need to do that so as a balance around all these things and we talk about we've still got a 260 million pound budget so we're still we've still got positive things that we can do so it's all about balancing the budget some difficult decisions but in terms of a commitment around towns and the economy of course you want to do that and the balance or anything else and let me just say we've got march for business coming up so where we work really closely with the fsp and there'll be events on there where we can support business for example so that's not being proposed to be to be cut we continue to sit on the north Wales economic ambition board where we're talking about schemes across the region because the economy doesn't recognize county boundaries so we need work to work collectively with our partners across that piece leveling up fund we we were successful in three bids for leveling up fund no other authority has done that that's bringing in circa 35 million pounds of of capital investment into predominantly our towns but the sum of our more rural communities are also benefiting from that shared prosperity fund any number of projects that are ongoing there that we've been able to help and support Welsh government transforming towns so my vision if you like for how we support the economy going forward is also about maximizing that external funding so we can continue support our town centers continue to make sure that we create jobs for for local people that needs to remain part of our list of priorities thank you thank you Graham Joe can you look like she look like Liz can you update on his scoop fine don't worry I don't think I've had it um so the question around schools then we're asking so the schools budget will increase overall but there will be a reduction um that will be a reduction in the funding formula that goes out so the funding formula allocates how the funding goes to school and that's on the majority of pupil numbers um we have what's called the SIFT process so that's where schools that are in financial difficulty follow a process that's where they you know they they have to apply for a licensed deficit to go into a deficit budget and within that there is a recovery plan for how they come out of that deficit and there are levels within that process and that comes all the way up to myself and Geraint Davis has had of education where we meet with those schools to assess that recovery plan and to see what they can do in order to come out of deficits and understanding the impact of that deficit on the delivery of education so Geraint is there predominantly for the education side of things and I'm there for the financial side of things that is a challenge to schools but it's also a support in helping them through those difficult times some things happen to schools whereby there is a a reduction in pupil numbers and that is what is causing and there is a need to adjust the way that they're delivering the curriculum because of a reduced number of pupils and that's what predominantly we're working through in that process we have communicated to school so there was schools budget forum last week which both Jill and I at Jill as lead member for education attended and having those discussions with schools around what the impact will be and there was also a briefing for head teachers last Friday morning which I attended to to deliver the message those around what the proposals were so they they have been planning for it and they will have that will have been taken into consideration to those that are already invested through the SIFT process the house thank you Liz uh next on my yeah I've got to Bobby Fealy thank you team thank you Liz could you do explain things but really well I have to say and I know you've said that we've been kept informed but just to recap on what a couple of people have said already we did in 23 24 have a better than expected settlement of 8.2% and at that time we had a funding gap of 10.5 million and proposals to bridge that gap had been identified so we agreed to set our optimistic 3.8% council tax on the back of that which as everybody has said was the lowest in Wales so back then and it's only a year ago we did have a lot of reason for optimism on the council the latest estimate is 25 million gap or and the pressures are rising and here we are this morning with a recommendation to set the council tax at 9.34% nearly three times as much this is an awful lot I think to ask our residents what do our residents want they want yes educated children children in decent buildings they want social care as and when they need it we've also got our duty towards climate change as a council the residents want decent robes to a reasonably good standard I'm not saying excellent here in anything I'm saying reasonable they want their waste collected and they want smaller services looked after like the countryside and the library service and the leisure services all of which have a massive impact on the well-being of our residents if local government cannot deliver adequate services to our residents across the county then what on earth is the point of local government if we can't do that we're asking our residents to pay nearly three times more than last year I think that's unacceptable I know it's not three times I'm saying nearly three times 3.8 to 9 go on then no we're not asking them to pay three times as much as they paid last year the increase is three times as much so that they're on the the fill will go up by about a hundred grandstand so I think that was perhaps badly put apologies but it nevertheless is a massive increase and a bigger increase than any increase I have ever encountered from one year to a next and for those reasons I'm afraid it will be impossible for me to put up my hand I just do not think it is fair on the on the residents to ask that big an increase in one year I was going to say a bit about the health service which you referred to just a small bit to say that although Welsh government have do have charge of how money is distributed they give the health service in Wales way more than local government and it's it's more than half the budget to be honest and that's their choice but for out of those seven health boards across Wales are failing and not living within their budgets which we in local authority do have to do it in my car my car Jason wanted to do you want to follow that don't you okay next up next on my list is Chris Evans then I'll put you in the queue Jason sorry and I thought you were a thank you chair is it morning or afternoon it's still morning um just a couple of things I won't talk about facts and figures that's not what I'm about but the cabinet meeting Jason in all respect the behavior towards human in that meeting last week was out of order and many is it this is this no no no many others agree with me and it needs addressing thank you but secondly we in that meeting in that meeting no and just like that meeting was in in that meeting the the phrase and it's being about in this meeting we were in unprecedented times it has never been heard of we set the budget going a few set that budget in unprecedented times yes we were all patting ourselves on the back we haven't raised a council tax yes and now we're in this financial difficulty we need to stop the party political games leave them in the car park and do it for the residents of denbyshire not what west minister is doing not what the senate is doing for the denbyshire residents that will struggle and it's not the people on benefits or just the people on benefits it's the working people the working people that have to go to adamba for the food parcels working husband wife three kids it is wrong to ask them for more money because the flight opinion will still carry on the dog fouling the grass will still grow higher and the services will get cut and you have the the the nerve to ask for more money it is totally wrong and I will not be supporting this and I hope anybody that has read and looked at that in the right mind and remembering what we have in the last meeting thank you very much for your time Chris well Gary was going to explain one part first and then well since what appears to be raises an issue about conduct what I would say as monitoring officer but I was present at the cabinet meeting and that whilst there was a difference of opinion between members it was expressed in a respectful way and there was nothing whatever in terms of procedure or conduct that would cause me any concern from a monitoring officer point of view Gary Jason yeah I'm going to commend Chris and say but respect you think you are totally wrong and the reason that you're wrong is that if you watch the the broadcast back you will see that what I did was ask you where are you from on the end there was I ask you that he stayed within the remake of what the constitution says we should debate that day and what the constitution said that we should have debated that day was the outcome of the scrutiny committee Hugh Williams is on the screen he presented a good report and presented himself well and he took questions as a result of those questions and those and that first scrutiny the cabinet came to a decision okay now the constitution quite clearly says that is the point of a calling when it comes to cabinet it expressly says Gary correct me if I'm wrong that it's not to repeat the debate Hugh in fairness was very honest and Hugh said indulge me you can watch it back indulge me I want to go over all the reasons again and I rightly said no do push back and I push back against him that's politics okay so I think the constitution backs me up what Gary said backs me up I think you're wrong and I'll end with it with something else as well we'd be starting my meeting and we were discussing the starting issue around how we use the letter and there was some differences of opinion there was some differences of opinion Hugh and I were on the same page I spoke up in favor of what he was proposing and he spoke in favor of me you know what we had a little laugh now we'd have a tip in the morning but by the evening we were friends perhaps politics I did nothing wrong thank you Jason I did say I wanted a civil meeting I'm open getting one thank you you wanted to respond to Chris Chris um you know what I I would say I'm I'm glad to see that you're angry about this because we should all be angry about this you know but but and and this is key we shouldn't be thinking that this is somehow mismanagement by denbyshire that's caused this gap in our finances and that is important to understand you know it's not party politics it's facts councils in England have already declared a section 114 order other councils in England have said that they're at risk of doing so councils of Wales have said the same thing councils in Wales generally have a 600 million pound deficit for next year that's just to put that in in in context 600 million is the amount well maybe that the the English governments are putting in through English councils next year but Welsh councils need that much English councils need much much much more so you know yes you're right to be angry we really should be angry this is not right that our residents have to um face a cutting services and at the same time an increase in uh council tax that's not right but what do we do we we can we can not raise council tax but then we'll have to cut more now that's that's the that's the bold truth of it or we can cut less but then we have to increase council tax to 20 percent that that's the only option that we've got we don't have the magic bullet whereby we can keep services as they are and have a a reasonable reason in in council tax but you know we can't would it not have made more sense then to raise it the first council tax the set the council tax of 3.8 that's can't go back to that no but would it not have made sense to set that to a reasonable in the beginning because it was close to be the words that came out of the cabinets was it was a robust wasn't it yeah thank you Chris okay thank you we went there we can't go back we made a mistake if we did we don't know if we did uh Terry Mendes next on my list the new Terry Mendes okay thank thank you uh mr. Chair and it wouldn't be a it wouldn't be a council meeting would it without a cabinet member mentioning and blaming Westminster um but just to give you a couple of facts uh the Welsh government has been given more money than ever before but they don't spend it wisely you spend 33 million on 20 mile an hour road signs which caused which caused the problem with the bus service and cut off my village of Lantegla so we won't go there so anyway we it's my new year's resolution I'm nice to everyone my fellow I have to do remind members as much as I laughed as well the old members are entitled to speak they've all spoke no one's bardic to them so if we don't bardic that'll be appreciated thank you okay I um I listened to council Hugh Irving when he came across he sort of mentioned the notion of having two boxes an essential box and an unessential box and I did notice some right smiles in front of me when they uh when that was um when that was mentioned um but that's not a that was not a ridiculous idea um you know that what's what happens in business if you can't afford something well you'll cut your advertising budget or you'll cut your maintenance budget etc etc so let's have a look at a couple of essential and non-essential boxes a non-essential one would be Denvershire today do we need a communications department do any obviously you really need five emails a day uh from Denvershire today telling us how wonderful we're doing when correctly really you're not um there's also um Denvershire limited we're paying 2.3 million to them and they're still posting a loss as per last year's um budgets but at least we'll pay all this money so that Jamie grows and get win another gong for losing money so you can't you can't put names to people Terry okay but can I just endorse what's uh councilor Hugh Hilditch Roberts said that this budget doesn't propose savings the hypothetical savings they're not there I mean I've asked that like sounding like a broken record you know the meetings we've had in Denver or here in county hall about budget briefings etc etc I've asked the question about voluntary was was it was it what's the what's the nice one uh voluntary exit scheme don't call it redundancy okay the voluntary exit scheme you know how many people are we sacking do we really need do we really need 4,600 employees um and even in the budget you can't say at this moment in time how many voluntary redundancies or voluntary exits they're going to be so it's just to reiterate from Hugh Hilditch Roberts it's it's a hypothetical savings we haven't got no concrete ones at this present time thank you mr chair thank you chair point of order please correct um the the member behind me has just gone way outside the brief of this paper today he has made accusations he's mentioned people uh by name dambishal leisure people who are not here to defend themselves i know that that person and i and pete prendergast spent two hours one afternoon explaining the finance of dll to the member behind behind me and i thought he was satisfied that dll hasn't asked for a penny more than was originally decided in 2019 that they should have and since then have covered all their cost increases their pay increases expanded leisure provisions and i don't see anything in this paper about cutting leisure services which has also been mentioned today not rightly because dll i voted against it dll is a company which is standalone and if we do want dll to come and answer for their finances then we should ask them officially to come here and not make these aspersions when those people are not here to defend themselves thank you chair thank you very soon get something to add well it's just probably going before me but i would just say we shouldn't really be speaking about people who aren't hearing in in uh particular derogatory manner they're not here to defend themselves it's no appropriate jake can i also quickly can you just qualify what a point of order is please because i think you've been used in the long context well um as a as a lawyer i've never actually yet heard a point of order that was actually a point of order so so um a point of order technically is around standing orders but it is appropriate and it is it is legitimate for a member to make a point about something so people colloquially use point of order but that's not that different thank you i i'm glad i know that now okay we'll jill german is next on my list the old kind of nature as if i may and i'd like to go back to schools for two main reasons the first is that although schools manage their own budgets in total they come together as our biggest spend um the pressures the education is under and in delivering education are enormous Liz has been through these pressures i want to reiterate them because i think it's important to have a really solid understanding of what the pressures are and what our ask of schools is we have inflationary pressures to do with energy costs to do with teachers pay we now have um teachers pensions to consider as although Welsh government have have um committed to passing on anything they receive from UK government but teachers pensions we do not yet know what the actions from UK government will be we have absorbed those entirely our population has increased as have our free school meal numbers for our children and young people which pays which plays a significant part in why we have had one of the least worst settlements i deliberately use those words because none of these settlements are good for local government but they are the reasons why that formula has set that out they're not good reasons for us arising free school meal children and they that has a pressure on our services and our schools we can do what we can at temperature level with this we can um make best use of grants and we do we have a very small team of officers who get as much as they possibly can from grant allocations and that sees that money going into our schools not least for school buildings which i've heard mentioned today an enormous amount of work goes into that so i want to make it clear on schools that although there is an ask we have absorbed every single pressure that exists to deliver education in danbyshire and i know i'm speaking with colleagues across whales and indeed other parts of the UK that this is not necessarily the case everywhere we have made that commitment we will not pass that on to our schools it would be my dearest wish to stand here and say to our schools that we don't want any savings from you or any cuts you're quite right no cuts and indeed we're going to increase your funding however that is not the position we're in we've made it as as most straightforward as we can for our schools we've been honest for them for over six months through school budget for them but we are looking between two and four percents we've asked our schools to model for three and they have done so there has been an extensive amount of work to make sure that that three percent is kept for our schools and being no doubt this is a budget that protects children and education we have made that commitment it's a commitment that we will keep to i want to make something absolutely clear though in closing but i absolutely condemn the position that our schools are in and indeed the position we find ourselves in in local government there is cross-party support to say that local government is not sufficiently funded funded across the UK it's the english councils we're seeing struggling most that's an important point to remember i condemn the position they're in and i'll repeat this i said this at school budget for them i said it to our head teachers last Friday but education is the greatest leader we have for social justice and i will continue day after day to say this and to fight for this to make sure that the children in denbyshire have the best possible lives ahead of them i will keep going i will not stop at every level but i condemn the position our schools have found themselves in as our denbyshire education family and i know from speaking to our heads that's what they consider is to be we will work tirelessly to mitigate this impact but denbyshire has put a budget together that prioritizes education and i'm proud to say so thank you thank you gil i believe that was a question uh the next one on my list is james elson thank you chair my fellow members um yes i'm looking at appendix one and obviously the figure at the bottom says zero uh what i i'm concerned about uh the figures uh obviously above that um it was at one of the um budget forms we had uh that basically i put out there well why can't we just write a budget and worry about it later um our excellent one five one officer um came back at at me but very succinctly and clearly as always she explained the fact that any budget will have to be robustly tested however my point is the fact that there are so many ifs and buts left open at this moment in time when we are asking to vote on the budget but it must be very difficult to actually say that this can be robustly tested at this point in time thank you thank you james do you want to respond to that please I think what we've done is to outline the risk um that's associated with those numbers i suppose so i'm i'm listening to the room um and the the concern that members have is around the three million so i suppose it's it would be appropriate at this point to come in around the three million so heads of service are aware i know what my target is for example i'm working on that in an ideal world i would like to bring to you what my equivalent it is here before you today i'm not there yet but i'm not far from that and that is the position of all other heads of service and we will get there there will be things that come along that change those plans because a budget is a plan and the biggest one i think to mention is the voluntary exit scheme and so i i have some information i can share that that would i think would be helpful for members so we have had about 140 staff applicants come forward for the voluntary exit scheme if we were to take the total of that 140 people those savings would be an excess of five million so we're in that the realms of that from uh from that however there are exit costs associated with that and everybody is an individual and everybody's exit costs are different they're not the same it depends what your service history is what your age is it depends around that um so the costs associated with those 140 would be 6.7 million so there's significant costs associated with it we need to remember that's not what the individual get paid that is what the the cost of releasing that and there are pension strain costs under the local government pension scheme in the way that that works that we would need to pay um the heads of service have completed business cases so this the scheme only ended at the end of january i think it was the 8th of january the heads of service then within a i think within a week have turned around a business case to assess that individual that wants to leave from a service point of view is it possible that we can accommodate that leave what are the costs and they've come up with their view of it in discussion with their service managers and the decision rests with the corporate executive team so the corporate executive team are meeting to discuss each one of those with the heads of service we've gone through half of them and the the next path are coming in the in the the rest of this weekend and in early next week so we are and we're following a set of principles around the decisions where the individuals go or or or not so we're midway through that process some applications will be turned down they're in areas such for example social care where the pressures are such you know we would not be able to release people working in that that area and and some because the cost is prohibitive because around the the the the the size of of of their of the exit costs it's at early days but i'll give you my expectation of where we'll end up and you know i carry out this heavily um because it's it's it is early days and this is nothing sophisticated it's just where i think we will end up at um the savings around that will probably come in between one one and a half million from that and the exit costs will be roughly at that level so it's in line with what we were expecting in terms of where our reserves would be uh and it also generates what we need to be generating from that in terms of that three million so whilst it's with yes we're not there yet we will get there and head of service are working towards it and we commit to bringing that to members um before we get into the new financial year so we will set up workshops to talk that through thank you gill i think Graham's quickly yeah i think i just want to emphasize that the point that this is made and i'll explain it in in my way if you like the non-section one five one way but doesn't in any way um take away this is very good answer the budget setting process this year like any other year is not an exact science it's never been an exact science it wasn't an exact science last year the budget is made up of a series of estimates so if you go to appendix one and you see that we've got a budget pressure that we we are anticipating having to spend an extra eight million pounds eight million pounds extra spend i've called it investment previously i was criticized for calling it an investment it's extra money in social service we are anticipated in the budget an extra eight million pounds on adult services extra money being spent so it's not all about cuts because those cuts are having to pay for that investment in areas where we are anticipating not an exact science those additional costs and we're also anticipating additional costs of two million pounds in children's services so you can get hung up on any number of lines in this medium term financial plan because of course they are estimates at the end of the year we will see how much adults social care how much social care pressures there actually are but we don't know what they are going to be we've made an anticipation of what they are likely to be so of course it's made up of some unknowns like in business you probably have a forecast for cash flow what you're going to take in the year at the start of the year and then you monitor that over the year and businesses might have to change what they thought was going to be their income it might be higher and it might be no businesses do it that's what we're doing it's about anticipation and budget management so of course out of a 260 million pound budget and i said it in my intro we haven't nailed down every bit of that 260 million pounds we haven't done it businesses don't do it no other council has done it this is built on a series of estimates there is a small factor of the three million but i think this has clearly explained that we're already eating into that three million is just not sitting there going how on earth we got we've got no idea we've got absolutely no idea that we already know that that three million pound will be delivered because each head of service is already working towards the target they have been given so the three million has been broken down into each other's service and we've got the voluntary redundancy scene voluntary exit scheme for which we have made no estimate but we know there's 140 people have applied and quite a few of those will will get through the process so everything bottom down no some uncertainty yes are my satisfied that we have mitigated against that uncertainty yes time will tell because budgets change and things will happen during the year and we will monitor those things and what we do is every month we take a budget report to cabinet that gives an update and we will also commit to what i've said here today already we're going to commit to more budget work workshops throughout the year so we can keep you advised of how we are delivering on those anticipated savings what's happening with those anticipated budget pressures so we've got clarity for members around how we are delivering the budget so i wouldn't get over overly hung up by this three million because i think we're actually already eating into that and it's on a 260 million pound budget which is made up of lots of assumptions anyway so i hopefully that's kind of clarity clarified that the position might go thank you chair thank you very quick uh berry melon now please thank you chair um obviously none of us want to be here talking about this and it has gone on a long time but just let me read these out to you which it did in cabinet nuttingham slough pride and thorough walking Birmingham nuttingham all councils in England that have gone bank nuts now send the papers every day something years every day if we don't understand that i don't know what we're doing here it's all wealth governments are following kafili kafili council i've got to find 48.5 million in the next two years we've got to make bad you know yeah you can call them back decision and they are bad decisions not only for us but for our residents we talk about the toilets uh as you said mark you know you're not absolutely saying shut the toilets you might be all the ways and mechanisms of keeping them toilets all right town council we don't know we need them discussions but we've got to put it out there the money that local councils had to spend was 17.5 percent fell by 17.5 percent between 29, 20 or 9 and 2020 we all know where the problem is i'm not going to go over there we're in this predicament same as every other council in England and in Wales and we've got to stand up and make our decisions that's what the residents put us in for yes these decisions we don't want to make but we've got to make them that's what we was put there for and i'll stand in front of my residents and say i've done my best i always will do my best let's get this boat over with and come and turn the thermostats up and over on the courts boat it's amazing thanks very much thank you very much Barry oh i've got i've got four more which i'll go down to and i know it's getting late and it's been a long discussion but the fact is that this one's disgusting it needs debated it needed voted properly so the next on my list is Brian Jones yeah thank you chair yeah i'll be positive for once well sort of positive i'll end up with a question for Liz following up from a council in Nella what he's just said there and i had this i've got this on my phone so i'm reading it properly there is a group of people called the local local government association and they've spent a lot of time going around councils that have gotten to difficulties and in and are now in administration and they published an article on the second of January what the article actually said was that what they discovered that all these councils that are in special measures and it's still there in the public domain if you want to go check it but i'm reading it off here all these councils that are now in special measures it's not because of a lack of funding what they've identified i mean will you go look at it it's there um what what what the saying is and we'll we'll have to take it as read from this article if i can mention the guy's name i don't know if they had a legal can i mention the guy's name did you know about this well i think if you're citing a public article written by somebody then yes right okay well it's uh i obviously don't know the guy lord more to every is god bless his cotton socks he he published this and what he said was and well if the ticket is read that the guy's uh academically blessed and he's articulate etc etc etc but what he said was and the question will come to Liz at the end of this the failures are down to management and failures in governance so you've listened to me thanks for that you didn't hear but it's there in the public domain so the question to Liz you did mention it earlier on section 151 officer um in the ensuing financial year whatever is going to come at us you're going to look at the financial governance some of question is what's the meat on the bone of that what's the mechanism will you be able to track it virtually on earth and this might be abridged before on a day by day basis that i know that but again that's my private sector back then that you did track things on a daily basis right i'll accept that perhaps you can't do that but what's your mechanism to keep on top of it on a weekly basis so if there's a shift in the wrong direction if nobody else knows you do you can communicate the chief executive and there's something going wrong here and we need to take action so if you can give us some assurance on that that'll be something positive thank you brian and i'll see you in the s body for the fine let's listen to his list thank you dear uh so when uh article such that i written around uh financial management and around governance they are talking about what we're doing here today they are talking about scrutiny you know scrutiny is really important in financial governance um so tomorrow they will be a meeting of the governance and audit committee um i'm sure we will be discussing budget at that meeting but there is regular discussion and scrutiny at um governance and audit committee so scrutiny around decisions that are taken and that's the process that we followed throughout this budget setting process through the workshops through cabinets through scrutiny meetings through call ins that that is part of good financial governance around the proposals then that come before you today um what measures so we need to strengthen in the air financial management so the tracking of this savings will be really really important so what we will do is we will include um and of course it needs to be at an appropriate level so we will include a monthly tracking sheet within the monthly finance report that comes through to to cabinet i also think though it there will be a need to review what goes to scrutiny committees probably at the performance scrutiny committee though need to be uh regular uh dialogue at performance scrutiny and also again through governance and audit committee so those are the headlines um but yeah yeah okay if i can come back on that apologies if i didn't sort of drop me but i was getting out and if i use example when i was in the halcyon days of a managing director of 200 people underneath me i wanted to know if somebody spent two pound extra on toilet roll i had a mechanism in place that the guy that made the purchase yeah had a responsibility to come to me to tell me he'd overspend and can you set something up like that which isn't out of the realms of uh an expectation where you're getting fed the information from the troops if something on a budget goes over a little bit we're not going to persecute anyone it's all about communication and then it gives you the opportunity then to react quick accept that i understand the process the council's got but we really need to have something a bit more when we're tracking it and while i spoke for me chair can you put me down further at the appropriate time to ask for a recorded vote police on this um chair host Liz is thinking about that can i just on my feet and say that i agree completely with what Councillor brian jones is saying there the technology the it is there to be able to have a day by day hour by hour account of how much department services are spending Gary dll has it thank you tress when i said you wanted to add anything i already done that can i can i just for the um for the minutes correct um what you said there brian because um lord morse is nothing to do with the lg a he's he's um he's uh with the office for local government which is a department no you said the lg a he's he works he works for the office of local government which is a department of the government in in west mr so kind of he would take their side i think yeah pollage with the quote but uh i was reading it off a list what you said that he said was correct but the context in which you put it was completely inaccurate and misleading so just just correcting it for the for the minutes thank you actually what did you want to do quite a concern on that i think if we're going to cite articles like fair to cite articles but we should all be clear where that article is coming yeah you know otherwise what what you're doing is saying you have read a article and this is my opinion but we can't check what you've written what you're saying but you didn't give us forewarnings that didn't give us you didn't give us forewarnings that didn't even put that in metal or what you were saying all the time just a minute excuse excuse me for all excuse me sorry i think all contributions should come through the chair there was a dialogue going on between two members there and it should happen through the chair yeah i agree with you martin and i agree with you all but uh duly matthews is next on my list thank you chair um i will be very brief but i just wanted to make the point there's been a few comments that haven't sat really well with me naturally but what i want to do is just to thank all our staff really they are our most valuable asset they are the backbone of this council without them and their hard work we won't be able to deliver anything and it must be a very worrying and stressful time for them when we're talking about widgets and we've been talking about voluntary exit compulsory redundancies so whenever we talk about any sort of cut to our services and it will affect staff can we please do it with a level of sensitivity and respect to our staff whether they work on the front line or provide support services um so that's just one point i wanted to make but the other thing i just want to mention is the and i can't say this word because it's words of more than two syllables the cumulative in activist assessments okay that's part of the budget pack there and it's acknowledged the impact assessment on budget savings and proposals will be an ongoing process um as you know um i'm chair the street strategic equality and diversity group we are a cross-party group of diversity champions and we will have the opportunity to feedback comment and make any sort of recommendations arising from the impacts on these proposals so there will be another opportunity as well as scrutiny for members to take part in that and to feed this back and making sure that cabinet and cet have those recommendations and considerations there so thank you very much for your time chair thank you very much Julie two more and then we will hopefully go to the vote with a better look i'll go with them you hold it first thank you chair um just a couple of things i want to come back on a gram i think this is the 12th time i've sat in this chamber on on a budget never before have i been asked to vote on savings that are not there i've been asked on assumptions but savings that are not qualified i don't care whichever way you dress it up you can't tell me now what that three million is so that's fact so um assumptions we always learn assumptions because we have budget assumptions and departments understand that so this is the first time ever that i've been asked to vote on a budget that isn't robust okay and and you may think i've been doing this to be obstructive but i'm just the reality the scenario is Liz is now given as a figure of five million on the exit strategy whatever it's called yeah the voluntary redundancy yeah so in essence in a month's time we could be five million better off and therefore we wouldn't be such a allowed to contact or we could be worse off and but we've already set the council tax and so i'm just what i'm saying is you you were asking um and it says i think in in the recommendations um it says the the head of finance that the 151 officer at the time the budget is considered it's considered it's considered and the council tax is set on the robustness of the budget estimates and the advocacy of finance reserves this paper the we've been asked to vote on does not do that without a shadow of a doubt and that is my my concern if i know what the three million savings are and it's in there and i know what the voluntary exit official figure is not estimated we can vote on a robust budget but i urge every member in here this is not a robust budget and if you find it your duty to put your name to it it is wrong i'm going to use gills new word it should be condemned thank you uh so i suppose there's a tip um i don't agree with that i've written the paper though so hopefully that comes with no surprise that i don't agree with that statement um to give an alternative then so the alternative would be not to include the three million of savings but to include taking a further three million from reserves that undoubtedly then becomes if if if my world is robust but in your world it's not robust that would make it robust what does that do to us what's the consequences of that what that means is we're setting a budget using three million reserves and actually then all that means is that those three million pounds of savings haven't been achieved in 24/25 it pushes them into 25/26 so actually in my view that's then less robust by giving the heads of service the target now and they working on them we've saved three or four months because otherwise what would have happened is we wouldn't have moved that forward we'd have stopped we'd have taken all this time that we need to in order to set a budget and then we'd have said oh we need to start on 25/26 and we'd have lost three or four months this way we we made good inroads into that three million you know i'm confident we're gonna get to that three million if we don't know we've got the reserves to back that up but this is a way of moving forward with getting those rather than just using reserves chair thank you i think you get what i'm saying is right but when i'm saying it in black and white this is not a reverse budget because what happens if the three millions don't come that's the possibility i'm not saying it's not but we've rendered it after the rest around this budget then we hit the hit you i think i think i think the officer has said has given you some kind of answer that he in her in her belief this was going to happen so i think i'm just being my belief yeah it's an exception so we have to accept the one for one of this is one five one and it's not listed still i know i'll get her right in a minute super resigned before we finished it sorry sorry sorry sorry let me go miss thomas okay last one now is jason thank you thank thank you chair um yeah i believe it is a reverse budget but we uh we all employed Liz for her complete expertise and her professionalism and she has exercised that diligently and brilliantly and we have a clear report that this is indeed a robust budget now um couple of things um brian it's wrong that brian has to thank the rooms for not being geered no member whatever they say should be geered perry was geered and that was wrong um even if he was a little out of order on the rules maybe i don't know but i would i would ask that no member is geered or as a member stands up to talk there's no there's no jeering or or comments we have a all of us have a right to uh to be able to do that um lord moor is not part of the local government organization has been said lord moor is actually a conservative member of the house of lords appointed by forest jonson uh in 2020 in true jonson's style he's appointing one of his old mates because lord moor used to be the boss of the daily telegraph editor the daily telegraph so just just to clarify just to clarify that article probably would not an under it was opinion probably an opinion piece just wanted to clarify that okay good okay so um to quickly on dll i've recently said well i wanted to say and that is because of the business model of dll and because of the the way that it's very well run with the support directors from this council uh it's very well run this council hasn't had to face putting leisure centers like many other councils have um so i want to i want to go um i want to go back to my opening speech about none of us wanted to none of us wanted to do this and there's a common thread here that none of us want to do it and none of it some of us don't want to vote for it and that's fine i i get that um but we've been here before in order to get to get to get the uh burst round of austerity through we've got a lot of chancellors but in those days it was george osborn's steady for a few years and we had to get through some really difficult times now i was in opposition then and i did what many of you're going to do today and voted against it but let's look at the decisions that had to be made in those times and they're they're not and they're not dissimilar to where we are now and i make these points and i know he was on the screen and i've said it i've been on record and i'll say it again that it'd be easy for new administrations to blame the last lot i haven't done that because of huge leadership through difficult times including including these difficult times and i'm going to go through a few with a few things that were done school clothing grants were cut heads from low incomes could not get a uniform grab low-income families were denied to go going on school trips look at this library cuts three posts from libraries were cuts the fun to buy books for libraries was reduced educational support for school social workers was cut cuts to education psychology supports were made cuts to school counseling services were made cuts to school libraries were made cuts to the book funds were made again hitting our most vulnerable children then the town hall that was cut to the closing hours there cuts to one stop services cuts to a welfare rights team at a time when our residents needed that support and advice charges put in place to parents of disabled children cuts to cctv cuts to tourist information i could go on and on and i'm not criticizing the administration who did that at the time okay lots of us didn't like it lots of us votes against it can full circle lots of us are going to vote against this today yeah but we all don't like it but why did where why would these decisions to go through the 15 16 16 17 process why were these decisions made why did many people here vote for these they voted for these horrible decisions to get a balanced budget to get a budget over that's what we're doing today it's a robust budget i'll go back to what i said before we cannot afford to not put this budget through i'll have to vote for this budget thank you chair thank you jason i think we've had a robust and again this robust word keeps coming up did you just want to respond to you because i have finished the debate i said i'd like to there was no criticism i was commending your leadership at the time you no can i can i yes i wasn't going to make a statement chair but because there was reference to the past uh the difference between and jason's always been respectful of the pastor and that's not going to go back at you jason the difference was that those savings for a lot of them and i can't remember them all alternative provision was found and it was better planned as well because we had time the process was reversed and we had time and we looked into it with alternative provision the scale was not what it is now i do accept that and the challenges are different what what's what's really difficult to understand on this one is who hildeges point that we're asked to set a level of council tax uh without a clear understanding of what the budget looks like moon into next year and it looks from my perspective as if we are reacting and it's a piecemeal approach and it's really difficult for us to get a heads around that i acknowledge the challenge and i acknowledge the intentions to improve but where we're at today given everything has been said it's really difficult to support this in the present context and that's all i've got to say but i'm not having to go back jason i'm just putting a bit of context to where we were and where you are today they're completely different i completely respect that thank you and let us hope that we can as as you said find alternative provision we've talked about transformational change um i would add that you know that it's much worse than it is it's much worse now than it was said isn't right go back to where i was uh during the debate uh and one member brian jones asked for a recorded vote and gary is said to me we need eight members to agree to the record it i've we got eight members of the council agree to a recorded vote yes plenty thank you okay so um we'll we'll do the recommendation i'll let go in and recommend it but i'll let gary explain what we're what we're talking about the recommendations first because one of them has been changed yes so uh just to go back to the recorded vote um certificate number of members asked for a recorded vote so the way that works most members will recall is that um i've got a register here of every member's name uh and i will read out uh once the proposals have been moved and seconded i will read out each individual's name and i will ask you to respond to me either with four or a blind if you're in favor of the recommendation an ebbin or against if you're against the recommendation and a mattel or abstain if you wish to abstain against the recommendation so uh the position you're in now chair is just need those recommendations to be moved i would remind members that you've passed an amendment to recommendation 3.4 so the reference in that recommendation to 500 000 is now one million pounds so um i'll hand it over some be to move in second will will you move the recommendations grinner um did you want them to read out that all all i know and okay if you will move grinner we have a seconder Jason right well let gary go to the vote then okay so just to be clear if you're in favor of the recommendation or blind up for if you're against an ebbin or against and if you wish to abstain a mattel or abstain so counsellor Michelle Blakely Walker four counsellor Joan Butterfield four counsellor Jeanette Chinglin Jones four counsellor Ellie Chard four counsellor Kelly Cluit four counsellor Anne Davis against Councillor Karen Edwards against Councillor Pauline Edwards against Councillor Gwyneth Alice or Blight oh Councillor Dean Delslin against Councillor Chris Evans again Councillor Hugh Evans Hugh I hadn't have mute myself against you Councillor Justine Evans against Councillor Bobbie Feeley against Councillor Jill German four Councillor Jonathan Harland four Councillor Harland Heaton four Councillor Hillfield the Roberts and that have been against four Councillor Carol Holliday four Councillor Allen Hughes four Councillor Hugh Irving against Councillor Allen James oh bye Councillor Delslin in favor against Councillor Dellef Jones applied four Councillor Paul Cady against Councillor Diane King four Councillor Geraint Lloyd Williams Councillor Julie Matthew four Councillor James May four Councillor Jason McClellan four Councillor Barry Miller four Councillor Terry Mendes against Councillor Raj Metry four Councillor Windmullin James four Councillor Mervin Parry What's there it is there Mervin come on with me to be in Paris You don't mute Mervin Okay, I'll come back at the end nor without Will Roberts, or Blide Councillor Garret Sandilands, or Blide Councillor Schooze Thomas four Councillor Andrea Tomlin against Councillor Shaddell Williams four Councillor David Williams, Mervin Against Councillor Ella Williams four Councillor Hill Williams against Councillor Emery Swinn four I'll just try Councillor Mervin Parry I it's not responded so I don't think I can record both Okay, I'll just do me some, Chair Okay Um, Chair I got 22 with two of them Oh, yeah, sorry Okay 17 right, yeah, 27 Okay Yeah, sorry, okay, yeah, sorry Sorry, uh, yeah, if I could do something that had been in accountants, okay So the vote was as follows There were 27 votes in favour 17 against and two abstentions So those recognitions and motions are carried Do we want to break or do we want to crack on or do we want to break now? We want to break, we'll have a break My fault, okay Come along Miss German Oh, I don't know, we're not here. I don't know. Are we? Are we turned on? Back on yes now We're back on then Okay, and there there is a few members um gonna home as you can well see so we'll carry on with what we've got but I am informed that we are caught So item six on my agenda is account tax reduction scheme 24 25 We led by Gwyneth and Liz Thomas. So Gwyneth, do you want to start off love? Thank you very much, chair You'll be pleased here that I'm not going to talk long about this item The This is a council tax reduction scheme for the whole of wills This is something that was given us as us to adopt There are a few options that we have but I'll ask Liz to explain those and why we've made the choices we have Thank you chair and I'll ask Liz to explain the details Thank you. Thank you. Goodness briefly So since 2013 Assistance for those who qualify for support with payment of council tax is called the council tax reduction scheme Welsh government have put in place a single nationally defined scheme that operates across the 22 local authorities in Wales To ensure there is consistency of support with the ability for some local discretionary elements Welsh government update the regulations annually And that's an exercise to operate the figures used in the calculations Determine the entitlements Which set the reductions to the amounts of council tax the applicants pay to reflect the increase or in the cost of living So annually under the regulations there is a requirement of council to To adopt the operated Welsh government regulations. They're summarized in the report and those regulations are appended to the report The council is also required to approve discretionary elements They're set out within the report and there is no change to what is being proposed Next year from what we have currently in place That's all I was proposing to say to introduce the report. It's an annual requirement I have got my colleagues my colleague Paul bands On the on the call Should members have any detailed question around the council tax reduction scheme. Thank you Thank you. Have we anyone got any questions Martin Thanks chair I just wanted to Double check something really. So there's a three million pound shortfall that's mentioned in six six This isn't the the shortfall isn't because of the extra discretionary um Provisions that we're making is at the discretionary elements It's that funding for this has been frozen and gradually this this funding gap has increased Okay So Do we look at things like um Given discretionary elements to say micro providers for example Say you could say some of the micro care provider providing 20 hours a week or some anyone could get council tax reductions We talk about being able to avoid agency agency work and how much that can save us. I wonder if there's any Merit in looking at that sort of thing to try and Entice people with counter tax reductions in order to ultimately avoid agency work and make a saving that way It's something we can consider so, you know as part of the previous item as some council tax reduction, but it was, you know council tax uh An otter around council tax that we're providing to foster carers. So that was part of the previous items That's something we've done around council tax Not quite sure how that fits with the council tax reduction scheme But it's certainly something going forward that we can I can have a chat to the team And we can have a look to see what is possible within the rules given that it is a a national scheme I'm not quite sure how much discretion we have But let's by by all means it's something we can have a look at certainly if it's a cost avoidance Uh, that helps us with our own budgetary predicament moving forward certainly something we can look at Thank you, Liz James Just a quick point I noticed that the on 4.2.2.2.2.1. There's a moment about the um post office horizon scheme not being affected So people who get compensation will not um, it will not be penalized by this. Is the only way that we can get that Back from horizon or from from from, uh, Fujitsu. Um, so if we would have normally have Been impacted there could can we make a claim on For the council tax So I think the the the point there is that those that receive compensation under that scheme wouldn't see their discount or their their benefit Reduced as a result of that. That's the point that so there's an amendment being made to the regulations This year to to ensure that those people that are affected by that scheme aren't Unduly penalized by receiving the compensation that they are due Um Yeah, so that's that's the position for them, but that's been set up by Welsh government rather than something that we can do Um if that answers the question Yeah, just if it if it affects you that our bottom line, um, we would be able to claim Well, we'll take a look at it. I'll take a look. I I don't know off the top of my head, but certainly something we can look into Thank you. That's thank you, James I've got no more hands up now. There's two two recommendations on this three one three two. Do you want to propose that go in it? The second of you Irving over the other side. I've not been asked for a recorded vote. Could we just have a show of hands all in favor Yeah, thank you unanimous. Thank you very much. That's carried We um Item seven on my list is the count. Sorry madam Of course you come out. Um, I'd like to raise a point of order Gary and I I hope I've got this correct now. Um, according to the Constitution Members are permitted to be present remotely at these meetings, but I feel that there have been members upon the screen that we don't really know if their presence are not because the screen is off and I I do feel that it's important that that we and The public that vote for them know that members are Um, you know paying attention to what's being said and and then I don't know Uh, John Butterfield did did request your permission and that's absolutely fine I understand that there can always be circumstances whereby but I just wondered what the position is on that So you know, I just wanted to explain, um, that, um, that, um, uh Councilor sandalance has had some difficult is a difficult personal circumstances and he's there And I think he was preserving his his battery because he found himself and then unexpected Circumstances this morning. Um, and and Joe obviously explained their difficulties Um Just just apply. I'm not making any judgment on anyone else. I think Are two members. I'm just trying to find that. I think when it's just getting just for future reference Basically, but Jason as much as anything else with what we know about Joe and we know about, um goddess Name mr. mr. mr. mr. mr. mr. mr. monitoring officer Uh, yes, so, uh, yes, the constitution and the law say that all members are entitled to attend remotely We do have a protocol on hybrid meetings And the protocol is that where members attend remotely They should keep their camera on, uh, wherever possible Appreciating that they may be connectivity or other difficulties And that if they wish to speak and the technology doesn't support the speech and the video then to switch the video off then So as a general principle, we would we would want members to be on camera wherever possible Okay, gwynna. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, I say back to item seven then council council workshop forward work program mr. Gary Williams again. Thank you chair. Uh, there are no changes to the council forward work program There is an update to the council workshop forward work program um And the update is that next week the sex of february there will be a workshop on the single transferable vote So democratic services committee suggested that council have a workshop on that because there is provision in the legislation Four councils to consider whether or not they want to change the voting system for local elections And this is just a workshop to explain what that is on the 12th of match. There's a Um, a workshop on the waste model prior to the rollout of the new model On the 9th of april there's an update on national park proposals from natural resources whales On the 7th of may there'll be a workshop Which we're proposing to do in here in the chamber because that'll be a demonstration of hoists and equipments from Adult social care because members were interested in understanding how those things worked And on the 11th of june, there will be a workshop on highways issues So, um, we're we're populated up till june and we're still working on filling in the rest of the year Thank you very much. Gary. That's fine Well, I think that's done. That's wonderful. We should be not going to sing happy birthday to barry out when you want to do that. No, I think we'll see In the absolutely we'll leave that for a we'll see council mela Well, thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for being civil like you were and it's been a very good meeting. I'm very pleased. Thank you
• Thank you.