Purpose

Update post Central Government fiscal
event

Content

10.1

The Director of Finance & Commercial Services
submitted a report setting out an interim update to the Medium-Term
Financial Strategy (MTFS) for 2025/26 to 2028/29 published in July
2024 to this Committee. The report sets out the scale of
mitigations required to offset estimated budget pressures over the
next 4 years highlighting the changes following publication of the
Provisional Local Government Settlement (LGFS), the impact of
Business Planning on the 2025/26 position and any updates to the
working assumptions for future years. 

 

 

10.2

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That
Strategy and Resources Policy Committee:-

 

 

 

(a) notes the updated Medium-Term Financial
Strategy (MTFS) budget gap stands at £52.3m by 2028/29, an
improvement of £16.7m compared to the MTFS published in July
2024;
 
(b) notes this improvement is mainly the result
of balancing the 2025/26 Budget;
 
(c) notes the overall gap for 2026/27 to 2028/29
has worsened by £14.7m and reflects updated forecasts around
inflation assumptions, insights from recent reviews on demands for
services and potential investments;
and
 
(d) notes for consideration the key assumptions
applied in determining the updated MTFS budget gap as set out in
Appendix 2 of this report.

 

 

10.3

Reasons for
Decision

 

 

10.3.1

The Council is required to both set a balanced
budget and to ensure that in-year income and expenditure are
balanced. No other alternatives were
considered.

 

 

10.4

Alternatives Considered and
Rejected

 

 

10.4.1

The Sensitivity Analysis section of this report
sets out what might be the result of changes to the assumptions
applied in our MTFS planning. Accepted assumption are based on
stress testing by business strategy and financial professionals
within the council to arrive at our best
estimates.