Report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) attached

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

The Neighbourhood Services Directorate had a gross budget of £262m and a net budget of £139.225m. The Directorate employed 1,916 fte.

Savings of £3.937m had already been approved for 2024/27 as part of prior year budget approvals and these remained on track to be delivered, however the ability to deliver these savings was being reviewed on an ongoing basis and provision had been made in the budget position to offset £1m of this risk

As part of the 2023/24 budget process savings were identified over a three-year period and it was intended that the 2024/25 budget would be light touch and no further savings would be required.

The original plan to deliver the Homelessness savings was based on a reduction in Temporary Accommodation numbers, although significant reductions have been made for the number of families supported in B&B the pressures faced remain significant. Agreement had been reached with DLUHC to review longer term leasing options for Temporary Accommodation units which would allow full housing benefit recovery and ease a significant proportion of the Housing Subsidy loss faced by the service. 

In light of the current financial years pressures and ongoing high inflation rates it had been necessary to revisit the initial assumptions and identify further savings options for consideration.  As part of identifying further savings options the initial priority had been to protect service delivery wherever possible, and this had included looking to increase income generation opportunities where possible.The additional proposed savings were summarised as follows:-

£1m of budget had been set aside to support pressures to the Homelessness budget. In the last two months there has been a worrying trend in asylum seekers, the migrant policy and homelessness.  This was in line with national trends and Core Cities and other GM authorities were all reporting similar issues.  Whilst extremely challenging it was important that a realistic and deliverable budget was set which recognized these additional pressures.

As part of the budget proposals an initial £0.9m investment into waste and street cleaning was proposed for 2024/25, this would provide £0.4m investment into waste collection and disposal to provide resources to meet increased demographic needs because of increased numbers of dwellings across the City that would require additional collection rounds.

In addition to the waste collection investment, £400k of investment was proposed for Street Cleaning which recognised the stepped increase in population and footfall whilst providing the ability to deal with hotspots, and £100k to deal with the accumulation of waste on Council land proactive cleansing of land to prevent fly tipping with a further £300k in 2026/27.

The annual waste levy costs were driven by forecast tonnages of waste to be disposed of and the costs of disposal. The levy was set by GMCA and based on latest forecasts it was anticipated that this would increase in 2024/25, with the increase to Manchester being £1.177m.  Further increases of £1.250m have been assumed for 2025/26 and £1.609m for 2026/27, these increases were reflected in the current budget plans for those years.

Following in from previous Executive endorsement of the intent to form an Event Commission for the City in order to secure major events in Manchester and to bring in contributions from key partners, budget approval for 2024/25 was to be sought for an annual £2m contribution from the Capital Fund to support the events commission.  This would be funded through the growth in retained business rates. The proposed Council resources would be supplemented by other city partnership funding that would be part of the whole events commission budget and managed by the Council.

Whilst the number of off-street car park users had increased post pandemic, it had not returned to pre covid levels and this was largely due to changes in peoples working arrangements and the move to hybrid working. As part of the 2023/24 budget, temporary support of £2.1m per annum was approved using reserves.  The use of reserves was only temporary for two years and a longer-term parking strategy was being developed that would seek to better align both on street and off-street parking in order to ensure income was maximised.

The Directorate also received a wide range of grants that totalled £18.7m in the current financial year.  The majority of the grants related to the Homelessness service and it was forecasted that Afghan Resettlement funding would reduce  in 2024/25 with the closure of the Bridging Hotels as the level of expenditure incurred to support these families would reduce in line with the funding reduction and would not create a pressure on Council budgets.

It was noted that as development continued across the city, this might lead to increased growth pressures for Neighbourhood Services as the number of households grew significantly. There was some funding proposed within the current budget proposals for both waste collection and street cleansing, but the increase demand was likely to also extend to enforcement, parks, leisure and wider neighbourhood working. 

It was noted that the budget reports had also been considered at a recent meeting of the Communities and Equalities Scrutiny Committee (Minute CESC/24/13), the Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee (Minute RGSC/24/19) and the Environment, Climate Change and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee (Minute ECCNSC/24/08) and both committees had endorsed the proposals in the report.

Decision

The Executive approve the Directorate budget proposals as set out in the report.