Last years rates

In advance of this year's rates process I thought it would be useful to publish my statement from last year on the process. It will be interesting to see if council has recognized the fundamental responsibility it carries to diligently manage public finances in this years process.

Ulster Unionist Party Rates Statement
The Ulster Unionist Party met with the Chief Executive and the Director of Finance in advance of the rates setting process on the 15th November 2016.
At that meeting the Chief Executive indicated that it was her intention to bring forward a recommendation of a rate increase of 2.32% to the rates meeting in February.
The rationale outlined for the increase related to the need to address the gap in organisational infrastructure in relation to Economic Development staffing and resources.
The Ulster Unionist Party accepts that it is vital that our Economic Development and Tourism capacity is brought up to strength to help meet our priority of growing our local economy, this increase addresses an underinvestment in this key sector over the last two years.
At that meeting, based on the information available at the time the Ulster Unionist Party informed the Chief Executive of two key financial goals that we would be setting for the remaining period of this council to include the rates setting process for the next three years.
The first was that council should be setting a longer term target of achieving a net 5% reduction in revenue costs during the next three years inclusive of the increase this year.
The second target was that council should cap its capital borrowing requirement at £80 million either by the sale of surplus assets or by off-setting the cost of borrowing by generating income from leasing surplus property.
Since that meeting we have had an opportunity to review our objectives in light of additional information and would now update our position.
In terms of the revenue cost to the ratepayer the Ulster Unionist Party will be recommending a minimum rate decrease of 2% in each of the next two years. This is based on the expectation that council can significantly increase the amount of revenue generated from service delivery and the management of key sites such as The Braid. We acknowledge that as part of the staffing structure a Business Improvement Manager will be recruited to drive forward such an increase.
We have also noted the alternative models of leisure service delivery used by councils across the UK to significantly increase usage and income. Such outcomes are achievable in Mid and East Antrim and we expect a new service delivery model to be introduced by April 1st 2018.
In terms of capital borrowing we remain committed to the £80 million borrowing cap and would extend this further by capping the percentage of revenue budget allocated to meeting borrowing requirements to 15% by the financial year 2019/20. By emphasising the requirement to proactively manage surplus assets and recognising the secondment of a staff member from the Strategic Investment Board for such a purpose, we believe such targets are achievable.
Members we have reviewed our position because we believe targets should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound. These are, they provide the political leadership and direction to allow council to move forward in the next two years at the same time as giving confidence to the ratepayer that we have a grasp of the potential benefits to them from sound fiscal management.
We would like to have gone further but at this stage it is clear from the 2015/16 Estimates and Actual budgets that there remain significant challenges in balancing expectations within individual budget lines. Clarity from the final figures for 2016/17 before the commencement of further discussion on the 2018/19 budget will be helpful.

We view this process as a budget setting process rather than a rates setting objective and as such we will continue to use this process to drive forward operational changes and sound financial governance.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The threat to the Union

Community Planning Theory and Practice