The Local Government Provisional Settlement projection together with indication of the return Icelandic Bank money has put a warm smile back on Cllr. Lindsay Whittle, Leader of the Council’s face.
He said in response to the WAG settlement figure, “The early analysis shows the settlement figure gives us an additional 2.3% which, with all the inescapable pressures on our budget, will, we believe allow us to continue to deliver our core services. The devil is always in the detail, and we won’t receive this until later this month. There is a prediction of a possible cut in grant funds. This may have an impact on some of our front-line community initiatives.”
He continued, “It is all the more pleasing when you consider the situation, which occurred this time last year when the Icelandic banks collapsed. Thankfully we have received information from the Icelandic Banks administrator indicating he thinks we can expect to receive 80% of our £15 million back. This of course is a great relief and I am sure our residents will be pleased to hear the news that we will get at least £12.5 million back. We can move forward knowing that the Icelandic bank investments issue will have little effect on our budget and provision of services in future years”.
Cllr Colin Mann, Deputy Leader & Cabinet Member for Resources and Sustainability said, “To determine how we set our budget and the council tax, we have launched the most comprehensive consultation exercise on our budget. 80,000 households have received a survey in our newspaper, our 1000 citizen’s Viewpoint panel has been surveyed and over 500 people have responded already. The survey is also on the website and we are getting responses daily via that medium. Early in November we’ll be holding a meeting with our Viewpoint Panellists to discuss the budget in detail. This settlement is obviously better than expected but it still means we need to bring forward robust efficiency measures to keep us on track. We cannot be complacent for the next three to four years either, as this scenario of protecting public services by the Assembly and Central Government is not likely to be repeated.”
