As
indicated a few days ago,
we're publishing today - a week prior to actual Budget Day - the full
and final draft of our revised budget proposals for 2014/15.
And as also mentioned, you can still access
our initial draft proposals (published in September last year) here - with the associated,
detailed figures via links here - and a report on the feedback we received from the public
here.
I'll now simply replicate the main text of our final draft motion for 2014/15 below, but it can also be
accessed here (that link includes some +30-pages of the associated tables/information!).
I
think the motion below speaks for itself ... and it will now be debated
at the Budget Day Council Meeting, 10am on Thursday 13th February, to be
webcast here.
Motion by
the Capital Coalition
Revenue
Budget 2014/15; Housing Revenue Account Budget 2014/15; Capital Investment
Programme 2014/19
1. Introduction:
1.1 In 2012, the Capital Coalition
entered into a contract with the people of Edinburgh which continues to this
day. We have committed to:
- Ensure that Council finances are
robust, balanced and used to the city’s best advantage
- Listen to and work with people in
a fair and honest way
- Invest in key services to meet the
needs of our residents
- Be open, accountable and efficient
- Promote Edinburgh as a vibrant,
international capital city
These commitments and the pledges
contained in the Coalition’s Contract with the Capital are, and will continue
to be, central to this administration’s work and budgets for this and future
years.
1.2 Since May 2012, the Capital
Coalition has successfully:
- Protected front line functions by
finding greater efficiencies in the Council’s operations rather than
reducing services. The Coalition will continue to do this and emphasises
that no area of the Council will be exempt from maximising efficiency and
effectiveness
- Established a high level
member/officer team charged with developing radical proposals to transform
the way in which the Council does business and generate significant
efficiency savings for future years
- Identified the means for creating
the Strategic Investment Fund of £7.5 million which will be invested to
maximise overall return to the Council
- Established a strong working
relationship with NHS Lothian to develop a robust plan to reduce levels of
delayed discharge in hospitals in line with The Scottish Government’s
targets for 2014-2018
- Started work on the new £37
million James Gillespie’s High School with the new classrooms, gym and
nursery at the adjacent primary school already having been completed
- Agreed to build the new £35
million Boroughmuir High School with work expected to start on the new
facility in late 2014
- Doubled the capital funding available to deal
with rising school rolls to £14.9 million
- Outlined a £30 million, 5 year Capital
Investment Programme for our schools and other buildings in the Children
and Families estate in order to ensure that the condition is graded B or
above
- Delivered the new Gaelic Medium Education
Primary and Nursery School; Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pairce
- Delivered significant new extensions at five
Primary Schools to respond to the challenges of rising school rolls
- Opened the new Seaview Respite Care
Centre
- Delivered an extensive ICT refresh programme
in the Children and Families estate providing new equipment, improved
wireless and internet access and storage
- Continued to deliver the Council’s Economic
Strategy – A Strategy for Jobs 2012-17. This has:
o Created or safeguarded 4,213 jobs
o Supported £221.7 million of physical investment
o Supported 4,445 people into work or learning
- Pledged continued support for the Edinburgh
Guarantee. This has resulted in Edinburgh achieving and sustaining its
highest ever rate of positive destinations for school leavers (up from 32nd
local authority in 2009/10 to above the Scotland average in 2012/13 with
91.4% of school leavers entering positive destinations)
- Agreed funding for a new care home which will
open in 2015
- Invested £16.452 million in 2014/15 to improve
roads, footpaths and carriageways throughout the city
1.3
This has all been achieved within an extremely challenging financial climate
which has included:
- The need to make savings of at least £120
million over the next four years; £36 million in 2014/15; £30 million in
2015/16; £38 million in 2016/17 and £16 million in 2017/18
- Growing levels of need particularly for older
people’s care services and increasing numbers of vulnerable people
- Financial pressures, many still unclear, as a
result of the Westminster Government’s welfare reform agenda
- Real-terms reductions in our overall grant
funding
- Increasing numbers of pupils in our Nursery
and Primary Schools
- Inflationary increases in costs for example
energy and contractual commitments
- Changes in legislation such as National
Insurance contracted out rate
1.4 Outcome
of the consultation
As part of its response to these challenges,
the Capital Coalition has given the people of Edinburgh the opportunity to have
an even bigger say in the budget setting process. We have:
- Published a draft budget almost five months ahead of today’s
budget meeting
- Conducted a wide range of public meetings
- Promoted live question and answer sessions via Social Media
- Sent out nearly 40,000 letters and emails
1.5 The Coalition has listened to the range
of views expressed and as a direct result of the consultation has decided to:
- Amend the proposal to share school librarians
- Reject the proposal to reduce funding for Additional Support Needs
- Provide funding to maintain lower class sizes in English and Maths
in S1 and S2 for pupils who are experiencing literacy or numeracy difficulties
- Amend the original proposal for kinship carers
In addition the Coalition has decided to:
- Increase funding for supported bus services by an additional
£120,000 in 2014/15
- Note the continuing allocation to cycling as a percentage of both
the net capital expenditure and the net revenue expenditure of the Transport
division of the Council, including revenue funding for core roads services,
transport and neighbourhood roads, but excluding tram and certain specifically
allocated capital funding, namely flood prevention and coastal protection,
agrees this percentage should be increased to 7% for 2014/15 and confirms the
actual allocations to cycling for financial years 2012/13 and 2013/14
- Reject the proposal to reduce funding to Police Scotland for
community policing – on the specific written understanding that both partners
will work to develop a service level agreement (SLA) focusing on Edinburgh’s
needs within Police Scotland’s portfolio of services. That SLA (which will
explicitly include Road Safety training) will be monitored and assessed against
performance via a Partnership Agreement between Police Scotland and the City of
Edinburgh Council, with regular reporting to the newly established Police and
Fire Scrutiny Committee and the Transport and Environment Committee
1.6 None of these decisions has
been taken lightly, wherever a proposal has been amended, funding has had to be
found elsewhere to present a balanced budget. However, the Coalition will
continue to drive forward progress on the six strands which form the basis of
our Contract with the Capital:
Ensuring every
child has the best start in life
- Investing a
further £1.164million in the Early Years Change Fund in 2014-15 bringing the
total annual funding level to £4.038 million
- Providing further
revenue funding of £1.131 million in 2014-15 for increasing overall pupil
numbers across Primary, Secondary and Early Years
- Investing to
increase the number of nursery hours for 3 and 4 year old children from 475
hours to 600 hours per year in 2014/15
- Doubling the
number of places in holiday respite playschemes
- Building on the
successful children’s services inspection to improve services from ‘good’ to
‘excellent'
- Strengthening
commitment to corporate parenting including free leisure cards for looked after
children and their carers
- Continuing to
improve services for children with Additional Support Needs. Not only is there
no reduction in front line additional support need budgets but £281,000
demography funding has been provided in 2014/15 and by 2017/18 there will be a
net increase of funding for additional support needs of 3.8%
- Continuing the
successful implementation of Curriculum for Excellence with year on year
improvements in examination results which are now in line with or above the
national average on all measures
- Working with NHS
Lothian and partners to take forward the development of integrated children’s services
Reducing
poverty, inequality and deprivation
- Investment in
mitigating measures to offset the impact of Welfare Reform
- Rent arrears have
more than doubled since the introduction of the Bedroom Tax in April 2013. A
dedicated Welfare Reform Team has been established to help tenants who face
difficulties in paying rent
- The number of
council tenants who receive help through Discretionary Housing Payments has
increased from fewer than 100 to more than 1,700. At any one time there is only
one single bedroom home available for every 80 households who have had benefits
reduced by the Bedroom Tax
- The Council and its
partners will build over 1,000 affordable homes this year, twice the previous
yearly average. One of the biggest housing led
regeneration projects has begun in Pennywell generating more than 700 new homes
- We have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Edinburgh
Community Solar Cooperative to deliver a community solar Photo Voltaic (solar
panels) Scheme
- New community cooperatives are being established in Gracemount,
Greendykes and West Pilton as part of the 21st Century Homes Programme
- Continuing investment in digital inclusion for communities
building on the People’s Network provision
- Additional investment of £0.665 million to support benefit
administration to enable the Council to respond to the increasing number of applications
for benefits arising from national Welfare Reform changes
Providing for Edinburgh’s economic growth
- Continuing to deliver the Council’s Strategy for Jobs, which
is working to create 20,000 new jobs, support £1.3billion of infrastructure
investment and help 10,000 people into work or learning by 2017
- This includes:
- Supporting the city's four priority investment zones for
development and regeneration (City Centre, Waterfront, West Edinburgh and
South/South-East Edinburgh)
- Regenerating Edinburgh's town centres
- Commissioning of services to provide childcare support for working
parents and supported employment
- Developing a Sustainable Energy Action Plan for the city and
guidelines for exemplar sustainable projects in the city
- Accelerating the programme of property and land disposals to
encourage appropriate development including (new builds) resulting in the
creation of jobs
Strengthening and supporting our communities
and keeping them safe
- Investing £1.2 million of Older People’s Change Fund money to
reduce social isolation in communities
- Continuing to invest in community policing
- Continuing work to further
reduce recorded crime
- Building upon the
success of year one and the delivery of the cooperative capital framework, the
Administration will continue to progress the development of more cooperatives
and social enterprises in the city
- Investing in CCTV
upgrading
- Improving engagement
with citizens and communities
Ensuring
Edinburgh and its residents are well cared for
- Over £120 million
of public and private funds has been invested to build 1000 new affordable
homes in 2013/14
- £48.2 million
invested to improve existing homes
- Over £3 million
invested to provide adaptations to people’s homes
- The Council has
installed 8,000 new kitchens and bathrooms, 2,000 homes with new windows and
13,000 homes with new doors
- Investing £8 million
in a new 60 bed care home for older people
- Investing £8.7
million Change Fund money in new preventative services for older people
including £5.6 million for additional home care reablement, intermediate care,
care at home and community nursing. This will include increasing the average
number of domiciliary care hours delivered per week from 42,557 in 2012/13 to
47,055 during 2013/14 (a 10.6% increase)
- Investing £5.1
million in new services for increasing numbers of older people, adults with
learning and physical disabilities and increased need for assessment and mental
health services
- Working with
staff and residents of Council care homes to improve services
- Working toward
making Edinburgh a dementia friendly city
- Continuing to
work with and provide support for carers
- Continuing the
development of Health and Social Care integration with NHS Lothian and Partners
- Preparing Council
and other services for the introduction of Self Directed Support in April 2014
Maintaining
and enhancing the quality of life in Edinburgh
- Securing Heritage
Lottery Funds which will potentially bring in over £5 million of investment for
Saughton Park and the historic winter gardens
- Redeveloping
Central Library as a cultural hub for the city
- Further
developing libraries as community hubs by opening 3 new libraries in
Craigmillar, Kaimes and Drumbrae
- Continuing to
work with partners to reinforce Edinburgh’s position as a global events and
festivals destination
- Earmarking up to
£200,000 to fund feasibility work into the future of Meadowbank
- Investment in the City’s infrastructure
(including roads, pavements, bridges, structures and flood prevention)
- 2013/14
- £41.440 million
- 2014/15 - £35.166 million
1.7 An additional Capital budget of £28.5 million
was approved last year for 2013-2017. Work to deliver projects has been
continuing over the last 12 months and will now focus on:
- £32 million to be spent on affordable housing
- £26 million to be invested across the Council’s property estate to
maintain infrastructure, including building management systems and to make it
more energy efficient
- £16 million spend on improving roads and pavements
- £38 million investment in a new Portobello High School
- Investing in energy-efficient white street lighting via £2 million
of interest free external funding
- Replacement of St Crispin’s Special School
- Building a new St John’s RC Primary School
- Continuing to invest in providing additional accommodation in Primary
Schools to respond to the challenges of rising rolls with new extensions or
adaptation works planned and well advanced at Kirkliston, Broughton, Craigour
Park, Flora Stevenson, Fox Covert, St David’s, Stockbridge and Victoria Primary
Schools
Continuous monitoring of the Council’s
capital programme will be undertaken to ensure projects are delivered on time
and on budget.
2.0 Savings
The main areas for savings are carried
through from last year’s budget and focus on:
- Delivering procurement transformational efficiencies
- Implementing internal improvement plans
- Maximising income generation
- Reducing our carbon footprint and generating income through
strategic energy projects
- Reducing the head count of the organisation by developing existing
staff, revising roles and responsibilities and preparing for a structural
review of the organisation
- Reducing sickness absence to 4% across the organisation
- Maximising savings through the rationalisation of the Council’s
property estate
- Review the effectiveness of
existing measures to further encourage improved performance across the Council
and partners
3.0 Risks and Challenges
The Council continues to face
significant risks and challenges which are more clearly defined in the Revenue
and Budget report 2014/15 – Risks and Reserves (Appendix 1); these will be
actively managed and reported through Council/Committee.
4.0 Future Budget Development
Council further agrees to:
- Continue to drive
the efficiency and effectiveness agenda to ensure value for money across all
service areas
- Work across all
council services to ensure delivery of the Coalition’s pledges
- Continue to work
with partner agencies to maximise resources and deliver the highest quality
integrated services
- Launch, on a
phased basis, a new citywide Shared Repairs Service in 2014
- Continue to
improve budget consultation
- Publish a draft
budget in early autumn 2014 and keep budget consultation and engagement as a
continuous process
- Continue to reach
out to those who currently do not interact with the Council to gain their views
on how we spend and save
- Work with partner
agencies to develop a more cohesive approach to budgeting and service provision
- Further develop
the cooperative and trust models in the delivery of services
- Work to develop
an SLA, focussing on Edinburgh’s needs within Police Scotland’s portfolio of
services
- Review the
current model of Kinship Care with a view to developing its role within the
Looked After Children’s sector
- Reduce energy
consumption across the Council’s estate and investigate establishing energy
services companies to develop projects, to reduce emissions and save money
5. Conclusions
Council notes:
- The report by the
Director of Corporate Governance setting out the Revenue and Capital Budget
framework
- The report by the
Director of Corporate Governance setting out the potential equality and rights
risks and carbon risks associated with the revenue budget framework
- The consultation
undertaken and the commitment to increase engagement in setting future budgets
- The review of
both third sector grants and the mechanism for delivery to meet future
challenges
- The work being
undertaken by the BOLD project and the corporate review of alternative delivery
mechanisms in supporting high quality service
Council approves:
- The Revenue
Budget set out in the reports, subject to adjustments, in Appendix 1 to this
motion
- The 2014/19
Capital Budget as set out in the report by the Director of Corporate Governance
- A band ‘D’
Council Tax of £1,169
- The Council Tax
and Rating resolution set out in Appendix 2 to this motion
- The schedule of
charges for Council services as set out in Appendix 3 to this motion
- The Prudential
Indicators as set out in Appendix 4 to this motion
- The
recommendation by the Director of Services for Communities to increase rents by
6% and the outline 5 year Housing Revenue Account Capital programme for
2014-2019
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