An ACTUALLY Balanced Budget for Folkestone and Hythe

In moving the 2024-25 Folkestone and Hythe District Council Budget at the Full Council meeting on Wednesday 28th February, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance Tim Prater said:

"I want to start this evening by a quick look at the scale of what we have achieved, together, in this budget. And I can do much of that in one line.

"Almost the last line of appendix 1 of paper A23/24 is at the foot of Appendix 1 is “(SURPLUS)/DEFICIT FOR YEAR”.

This year, that deficit was budgeted at £1,786,247. In 2024/25, that deficit will be zero.

This is an ACTUALLY balanced budget for Folkestone and Folkestone & Hythe District Council.

That we've got to that position is testament to the superb work, and commitment of, the Chief Executive, Directors, Officers and all staff of the council through the last six months, and not least their engagement with the transformation project.

Huge thanks to Lydia and Ola for all they have done to bring this budget to us, and my apologies to them for all the questions, feedback, ideas, changes, grief and general stress I have brought to their life over the last 6 months.

But actually, its also due to all the Councillors in this room. We’ve made it. I just get to present it.

Transformation included redundancies, but we've absolutely tried to minimise that, and we thank all staff, including those now leaving, for their contribution.

Cabinet members had the joy of the Star Chamber process in September where we went through a 5,000 line budget department by department, line by line.

Councillors have also played their part in finding savings, evaluating the benefits of other savings proposals, and giving their feedback, which has been heard.

I want to flag in particular the role of the Finance Scrutiny Committee who look in detail at the proposals, and whose in depth look is not only invaluable and led to our changing the budget, and even finding errors which have now been corrected.

But also I should mention the Personnel Committee Chaired by Connor who have guided us through both transformation and the pay rise negotiations with skill and empathy.

And all that work means that we'll have NO deficit next year. We secure ALL key services. We fully fund a DECENT pay rise for staff which I’m delighted to say they have overwhelming accepted. And we a strong position from which to revise our Corporate Plan and priorities and rebuild.

In getting to the final budget, we go through round after round of changes, forced on us through the stupidly late setting of the Local Government settlement, various Government announcements and other tweaks.

However, I want to be fair: we still had a funding gap prior to the Local Government Settlement announcement. That settlement was rather better for this Council than we expected: we had planned for the worst, and the worst did not happen. That has helped bring us to a place of balance tonight.

However one saving that went to the early February Cabinet was a reduction of £15,000 in ward grants. That reduced the amount each Councillor could allocate to community projects in their ward by £500.

This was a reduction flagged to us as of concern by the Finance Scrutiny Sub-Committee and Clive Goddard amongst others. We agreed as we hugely value the ability for Councillors to make a direct difference. However we could hardly give that ability back to Councillors from a budget set on the sacrifice of staff and officers.

So we found a different way to put that £15,000 back in the budget, but clearly at the expense of Councillors: specifically the Leader and Deputy Leader. They will sacrifice their allowances above cabinet members: Jim and I will no longer take the larger leader and deputy leader allowances. To be clear: the sacrifice on that is 90% Jim Martin and hugely honourable: I'm proud to be working with him.

But even between the early February Cabinet meeting and the one today there have been other tweaks, including:

“Annual Member Allowances increment of £36,800 has been provided for within the 2024/25 budget. This is in line with the Council Constitution that the allowances shall be automatically adjusted, annually, by reference to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The adjustment will be calculated on the September CPI index, for implementation the following April.”

This was I think a tweak to far: the CPI increase would have led to a bigger increase in Councillor Allowances than staff got as a payrise, and clearly a flat rate increase including on SRAs would have seen those with SRAs benefiting more than those without.

Connor as Labour Group Leader brought to us an amendment, with which Cabinet have agreed. It rrestricts the increase in the basic allowance to the same 5% that staff have been offered and accepted, and to freeze SRA levels at the current rate for this year.

That impacts all Committee Chairs and Cabinet Members. Actually more of the Labour Group are impacted by that change than any other group – thank you for your suggestion, which we accept. The additional saving that makes will go to the Corporate Initiatives Reserve, to potentially help us deal with in-year “events” and pressures.

We are entering the last year of the Cabinet system, and the Independent Renumeration Panel is already considering our new structure, and the allowances they feel appropriate for that structure. The freezing of SRAs is therefore very clearly for one year, and we’ll listen to the IRP on their views, having consulted widely across groups, for the future.

All major services: saved. Staff payrise: funded. Ward grants: protected. Deficit: eliminated.

Not many Councils in the UK will be saying that.

Let's take some pride in being one of them.

This is a good budget, a balanced budget. Please support it, and my thanks to every one of you for making it happen.