Bath & North East Somerset Council is set to propose how much money will be spent on services across the Bath area and how much is invested in projects during 2015/16.
In order for the Council to plan local services, a three-year budget was agreed covering 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 – this is the third year of that plan.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Paul Crossley, said: “Because of our sound financial management, our plans are on-target and on-budget.
“They have allowed the Council to deliver £30million in savings whilst protecting frontline services. For the fourth year of the Council’s administration there will be a proposal to freeze Council Tax.”
Cllr David Bellotti, Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Cabinet Member for Resources, said: “We will continue our focus on delivering the Council’s extensive capital plans.
“This will include continued investment in road and infrastructure schemes such as the Bath Transport Package; regeneration work in Keynsham and Radstock; Digital B&NES and Bath Western Riverside.
“We will also be proposing a number of measures to alleviate poverty in our district, including maintaining funding for the Social Fund at £250k despite loss of Government grant; supporting our local foodbanks; working with partners to help local people replace payday loans with much lower cost borrowing; ensuring we continue to develop our Connecting Families programme, as well as working to reduce unemployment both for adults and school leavers.
“At the same time the budget for 2015/16 will consider variations that are needed in the light of changes in our funding, emerging priorities and new responsibilities coming to this Council.”
Some of the key new initiatives that will impact on the 2015 / 16 budget include:
Investing in the economy; the West of England sub-region is now able to retain any growth in business rates collected within the Enterprise Areas and Enterprise Zone, including Bath City Enterprise Area.
This will be reinvested through an Economic Development Fund into infrastructure to support jobs and business growth in the economy.
This includes enhanced flood defences which will reduce flood risk for properties in the area as well as bring development sites out of the flood zone enabling new offices and homes to be built.
The Economic Development Fund is expected to be about £500m for the West of England region over the next 25 years; Bath and North East Somerset will benefit from this and we are putting in the first business case to the fund in December which will be for £25million to support infrastructure on Bath Quays.
This is part of the West of England City Deal agreed by Government, Bath & North East Somerset Council and its partner unitary authorities.
Better Care Plan for Bath and North East Somerset; the Council, working in close partnership with NHS BaNES Clinical Commissioning Group, has set out and agreed plans to allocate £12 million from the Department of Health’s Better Care Fund to provide integrated care and support for local people during 2015/16.
Known locally as the Better Care Plan, this will provide services that support and safeguard older and vulnerable people, helping them to remain independent and live at home for longer.
It will focus on early intervention to help people stay well and stabilise their conditions, preventing the need for intensive care and support and reducing unnecessary and unplanned admissions to hospital.
This approach, which is much more about individual patient’s needs, will need a shift in focus and resources to place greater emphasis on prevention and early intervention.
Care Act 2014; the Care Act, which will be implemented in phases starting in April 2015, brings new duties around social care services into the Council. These include:
- Responsibilities for wellbeing, prevention, information and advice including advice to people funding their own care;
- The introduction of a National Eligibility Criteria for adult social care;
- A right for carers to have an assessment of their own needs and to access support;
- A new duty to assess and support people funding their own care;
- A new right for people who are funding their own care home placements to have a Deferred Payment Agreement (essentially a loan, which would then be repaid from the person’s estate).
Whilst broadly welcoming the principles of the Care Act, the Council is concerned about its funding for taking on these new duties, and estimates that it may need to find in the region of £1 million to fund the extra costs of this in 2015/16.
Whilst this is only an estimate and is dependent on a number of factors including individual behaviours and responses to the new rights, the Council does need to take account of the cost of its new duties in its planning for the next year and beyond.
The Council will be consulting with a range of community organisations on the budget and priorities for the future at four events being held in the first week of November in Bath, Keynsham and Radstock.
In November each of the Policy Development and Scrutiny Panels will consider progress updates about the delivery of the three year plan. This will cover adult social care, education, place, resources and regenerations, skills and employment.
