Report of the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) attached

The report of the Strategic Director (Growth and Development) explained how the budget proposals for the Directorate had been developed.

The 2021/22 budget process saw the Council develop savings and efficiency plans of over £48m over the three years to 2023/24.  Overall, savings of £1.408m related to the Growth and Development Directorate had been identified and of these £1.108m were on track to be achieved.  The only exception was the £393k savings from holding/deleting Planning and Building control vacancies.

It was explained that whilst the service redesign was expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022, it would take time to implement the changes and recruit to all the posts. To allow for service delivery, and succession planning it was necessary to amend the structure and invest in some areas, therefore it was anticipated that ongoing savings of c£150k would be realised from reduced staffing costs across planning and building control.  This would require alternative savings of £243k to be identified and delivered in 2022/23.  To allow the Strategic Director time to review service options it was planned that the ongoing savings requirement of £243k would be managed through a combination of staff savings from vacant posts while posts were recruited to and income in 2022/23 whilst longer term ongoing options were developed.

Appended to the report were details of the initial revenue budget changes proposed by officers, the impact of which would result in a proposed net budget for 2022/23 of (£9.752m), and the planned capital budget and pipeline priorities.

It was noted that the report had also been considered at a recent meeting of the Economy Scrutiny Committee where the committee had endorsed the budget proposals (Minute ESC/22/06)

Decision

The Executive approve the budget proposals as detailed in the report.