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Corporate Services

BUDGET BRIEFING PAPER 1

REVENUE BUDGET 2014/19

In February 2013, Aberdeenshire Council approved a five year budget from 2013/14 onwards. This included a balanced two year budget covering 2013/14 – 2014/15. For the years between 2015/16 and 2017/18 the budgets were left with a cumulative shortfall of £23 million.

Corporate Pressures

Since the budget was set in February 2013, the followingbudgetpressures have emerged:

2014/15
£’000
Pay and Conditions of Service Review / 1,800
Capital Financing Charges / 3,287
Revenue Budget Savings / 500
Total / 5,587

These pressures are outlined in more detail below.

Pay and Conditions of Service Review – This relates to the proposal to pay more competitive salaries to improve the recruitment and retention of staff. An amount of £3.3 million was already included within reserves to provide for the pay increase, but a further £1.8 million is required to ensure enough budget existsto pay for the increased basic salaries.

Capital Financing Charges–The capital plan has been adjusted to reflect capital projects which have been previously agreed.. This enhanced capital plan requires to be funded by additional borrowing and this budget pressure relates to the annual costs of servicing this debt. In addition to this, information regarding the future capital plans of services are under review which may result in potential additional pressures on the capital plan which if realised may require to be funded from borrowing in 2014/15. This pressure is currently under review to determine whether it can be reduced.

Revenue Budget Savings – Revenue savings that were previously included in the balanced budget for 2014/15 are no longer achievable and will require to be added back into the base budget. These were reported to the Scrutiny & Audit Committee in October 2013.

Service Pressures

Services have also identified a number of emerging pressures on budgets which affect Service Delivery. These are summarised by Service in the table below:

Service / 2014/15
£’000
Education, Learning and Leisure / 1,984
Housing & Social Work / 1,900
Infrastructure Services / 998
Corporate Services / 504
Total / 5,386

These Service pressures are outlined in more detail below:

Education Learning & Leisure – The pressures identified are as follows:

  • Nursery Schools/Pre School Commissioned Places
  • Early Years Project
  • Fraserburgh Pool and Community Centre.

Housing and Social Work–Pressures have arisen in the following areas:

  • Community Occupational Therapy Service aids and adaptations budget
  • Very Sheltered Housing New Complexes budget.

Infrastructure Services –Budget pressures are predicted in the following areas:

  • Inflationary increase in relation to Bitumen costs
  • New waste collection system which requires us to send co-mingled waste to a Materials Recycling Facility.
  • Various other pressures have been identified with regard to the Transportation budget specifically, Local Bus Services, Car Parking, European Partner Projects, Road Safety and Development Capacity Management.
  • Postages costs across all Council establishments
  • Regeneration Team within Economic Development.

Corporate Services – Budget pressures have arisen relating to:

  • A number of ICT projects namely, Hilltop Wireless, Factor 2 Authentication, Schools Data Lines and the E-Committee project.
  • Several small pressures identified across Corporate Services.

All of the above potential pressures are being reviewed as part of the work now underway to ensure that a balanced budget is maintained for 2014/15.

Head of Finance

07/11/13

Prepared by Chris Smith