Agenda and minutes
Venue: held remotely via video-conference
Contact: Lisa Evans
No. | Item |
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Apologies Minutes: Councillors
Elaine Evans, Dan Potter and Mark Strong apologised for their inability to
attend the meeting. Lowri
Edwards, Corporate Lead Officer, Democratic Services, apologised for her
inability to attend the meeting. |
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Disclosures of personal interest (including whipping declarations) Members are reminded of their personal responsibility to declare any personal and prejudicial interest in respect of matters contained in this agenda in accordance with the provisions of the Local Government Act 2000, the Council’s Constitution and the Members Code of Conduct. In addition, Members must declare any prohibited party whip which the Member has been given in relation to the meeting as per the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 Minutes: There were no disclosures of personal or prejudicial interests. |
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Draft budget for 2022/23 PDF 146 KB Additional documents: Minutes: Councillor
Rowland Rees-Evans, Committee Chair, outlined the meeting procedure
and welcomed the Leader of the Council, Councillor Ellen ap
Gwynn, Cabinet Members and Officers to the
meeting. The Leader of the Council,
Councillor Ellen ap Gwynn,
presented the report on the draft
budget for 2022/2023 including the three year capital programme, explaining that this
is a provisional settlement, and that the final settlement is due on the 1st March,
2022. The total revenue
settlement, known as the Aggregate External
Finance (AEF) allocated to Ceredigion for 2022/23 is £119.419m. This
compares with 2021/22 allocation of £110.006m
(adjusted for transfers),and is
an increase of 8.6%. Wales as a whole has seen
an average increase of 9.4% with
Ceredigion ranked at 19th. The
Leader advised Committee Members that since her appointment in
2012, £50 million savings had been made. Ceredigion’s Settlement
reflects a range of less financially favourable re-distributional
movements seen in population and Secondary School pupil number
indicators. Standard Spending Assessments (SSA) are notional calculations of
what each Council needs to spend to provide a standard level of service. The
SSA for 2022/23 is £166.372m which is a 7.2% increase from the previous year
(2021/22 £155.153m). The most significant service increase being personal social
services at 12.2%. The budget model has been
drafted to include the adjustments with regard to the provisional
settlement. Any adjustments required that arise in the final settlement will require
consideration and appropriate incorporation into the budget. The detailed assessment work carried out
to identify the unavoidable cost pressures
faced by
Services has been finalised and identified a net total amount of £13.1m, which is summarised
in Appendix 1 of the agenda papers. This amount is almost double the previous years
and is £3.8m more than the increased sum available in the settlement and this would
equate to the need to increase Council Tax by close to 8%, however some savings
are available to the budget setting process. The Rising costs of Care alone totals
£7m, including: ·
UK £9.90 Real Living Wage and 1.25% Employers National Insurance –
impacts on most if not all Care related Commissioned Services (results in
provisional inflation factors of 8.87% for Domiciliary Care / Supported Living,
9.13% for Residential Care and 11.15% for Direct Payments); ·
Residential Homes – Fees setting review currently in progress; ·
Direct Payments; ·
Looked after Children; and; ·
Domiciliary Care. The Leader also advised the Committee
that the provision for pay inflation is a significant
factor estimated at £3.4m and that there is no formal agreement yet on the main
2021/22 pay award. After taking into account the potential funding available, a
balanced budget is achievable.
A Corporate approach has been taken to dealing with the Covid-19 net
costs and
losses, as opposed to each service having to
incur sums attributable to relevant
services. This approach has ensured that
financial management of the 2021/22
budgets and business as usual activity remained
strong. Total hardship costs and lost income are currently forecast at a ... view the full minutes text for item 50. |
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CONTEST - The UK Government's Counter Terrorism Strategy PDF 115 KB Additional documents: Minutes: The Chairman advised the Committee that the report would no longer be considered due to Officers availability. It was agreed that this would be considered during the next term of office. |
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Report on Covid-19 Gold Command Decisions log PDF 127 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: Elin Prysor
attended to present a report on Covid-19 Gold Command decisions log. The
previous reports were presented on 20th
January 2021, 16th June 2021 and 1st December 2021. The Decision Log for decisions made between 1st
September 2021 and 31st December 2021 were included in this report
and had been published on the Council Website. Following
discussion, Members agreed to note the content of the Gold Command Covid-19
Leadership Group Meetings Decisions Log to monitor the governance for the Council’s adapting
decision-making arrangements. The Chairman thanked Elin Prysor for
the report. Elin Prysor
attended to present a report on Covid-19 Gold Command decisions log. The
previous reports were presented on 20th
January 2021, 16th June 2021 and 1st December 2021. The Decision Log for decisions made between 1st
September 2021 and 31st December 2021 were included in this report
and had been published on the Council Website. Following
discussion, Members agreed to note the content of the Gold Command Covid-19
Leadership Group Meetings Decisions Log to monitor the governance for the Council’s adapting
decision-making arrangements. The Chairman thanked Elin Prysor for
the report. |
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Minutes: The minutes of the Coordinating meeting held
on the 1st
December 2021 were confirmed as a true record of proceedings and
there were no matters arising from those minutes.
Councillor Rowland Rees-Evans, Chair, advised Members that this was the
last Coordinating Committee meeting for this term of office. He took the opportunity to thank the Committee
Members for their support during the past 2 years whilst he has been
Chair. He thanked the Leader of the
Council and Cabinet Members. He also thanked Lisa Evans, Standards and Scrutiny
Officer and Dwynwen Jones, Overview and Scrutiny Officer, for their support
during this period. He also thanked the Monitoring Officer, Elin Prysor, Carwyn
Williams and Rhidian Jones, Translators, and all Officers involved for ensuring
the smooth running of the meetings during this period. |