Agenda and minutes

To be notified of the appointment of any Substitute Members.

Councillor Joe Kirwin was in attendance as a substitute for Councillor Martin Murphy.

You are invited to declare any registerable and/or non registerable interests in matters appearing on the agenda, and the nature of that interest.

You are also invited to disclose any dispensation in relation to any registerable and/or non-registerable interests that have been granted to you in respect of any matters appearing on the agenda.

Please complete the Declarations of Interests card available at the meeting and return it to the Democratic Services Officer before leaving the meeting.

Councillor Liam Bones declared a Non-Registerable Personal in Item 4, he has a family member who is employed by is employed by North Tyneside Council.

Councillor Debbie Cox declared a Non-Registerable Personal in Item 4, she has a family member receives adult social care.

Councillor Tommy Mulvenna declared a Non-Registerable Personal in Item 4, he has a family member who is employed by is employed by North Tyneside Council.

Councillor Pat Oliver declared a Non-Registerable Personal in Item 4, she has a family member receives adult social care.

Councillor Jane Shaw declared a Non-Registerable Personal in Item 4, she has a family member who undertakes work on behalf of North Tyneside Council.

The report is to update members of the Overview and Scrutiny Co-ordination and Finance Committee (OSC&FC) on the decision taken on 29 January 2024 at Cabinet.  It also requests that members of the Committee, supported by the members of the Budget Study Sub-group who are invited to this meeting, consider whether any further updates are required to its report to Cabinet on its Budget Proposals.

OSC&FC should note that Jon Ritchie will present a short summary of the changes discussed and agreed at Cabinet on 29 January 2024 compared to the previous Cabinet report (from 27 November 2023).

The Committee were provided with an update by the Director of Resources on the current budget proposals agreed by Cabinet at the 29 January 2024 meeting.  The updated position set out the impact of the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement, received just before Christmas.  This saw an improving position from the funding gap of £3.7m in the November report, reducing to £2.9m, which Cabinet then agreed address through the use of a deferral of the Strategic Reserve replenishment and the flexible use of capital receipts for transformation activity.

The Director of Resources also referred to a verbal update given by the Deputy Mayor at the Cabinet meeting, to update on further local government funding announced after the production of the agenda for that meeting.  This set out an expected additional funding of between £1-2m, although this was subject to the Government confirming the allocation of funds which would not be known until the Financial Settlement in February.  The final position will be included in the agenda pack for Council on 15 February 2024.

With regards to the Housing Revenue Account (HRA), the Committee was notified that the Regulator for Social Housing had confirmed the rent setting policy, which is CPI (Consumer Price Index) for September plus 1%.  It has been confirmed that the Highways Asset Management Plan has now been through Cabinet and the proposal is to include the additional £2m spend on highways for 5 years (year 1-4 already had the £2m in the plan).  The Committee was also notified that an updated allocation has now been received for the food waste capital grant allocation and this is slightly better than expected.  Finally, it was confirmed that there has been no further update regarding the Household Support Fund for 2024/25. 

The committee agreed that they did not have any further comments to report back to the meeting of the Cabinet on 5 February 2024.

Committee Resolved, 1) that following consideration of the update from the Director of Resources  they did not require any further update to the report to be taken to Cabinet on 5 February 2024.