Showing posts with label investment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label investment. Show all posts

Saturday 19 November 2016

Brent Council opens consultation on 2017-18 budget: including cuts and council tax rise

Brent Council has issued the following press release on its budget consultation - printed here unedited.

 Six years of cuts by central government to local authority budgets across the UK has meant Brent Council has needed to find new ways to maintain services, with some difficult decisions made along the way.

Despite growing demand for local services from an increasing and ageing population, the funding that Brent Council receives from the Government is set to fall even further.

Rather than cut vital services, which residents rely on, the council is conducting a ten-week consultation on its budget proposals which includes a rise in council tax by 3.99 percent to help plug the gap left by the government's cuts.

"Imagine your household bills went up every year, but your salary kept being cut. You would have to make some tough choices and find new ways to make your money go further," says Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council.

As well as showing how the council plans to raise income to balance the books the budget details spending plans for 2017/18.

Key areas include everything from investment in making Brent cleaner and safer, rubbish and recycling collection, boosting jobs and skills to protecting the vulnerable, increasing council housing, maintaining parks and open spaces and giving every child the best start in life.

"In recent years, we've taken steps to make sure that Brent Council is as efficient and cost-effective as possible. At the same time, we've worked hard to ensure the services that our residents rely on are protected.

"It is vital that the work we do as a Council reflects the priorities of our residents. That's we are asking the people of Brent to tell us what matters to them. I would encourage as many people as possible to visit the website, or join us at their local Brent Connects meetings taking place at the start of next year."

Have your say online by 1 February 2017 or come along to one of the Brent Connects public meetings in January or February 2017.

Views taken at the Willesden and the Kingsbury and Kenton Brent Connects meetings, after the consultation portal has closed, will be added as an appendix to the Cabinet report and considered on Monday 13 February 2017 at the Cabinet meeting.

Full Council will then make a decision on the final budget for 2017/18 on Monday 27 February 2017.

Friday 30 September 2016

Education the focus for campaigning this weekend

The National Union of Teachers will be out in force this weekend campaigning for the best education for all children and arguing for investment in schools and measures to reduce child poverty and inequality.

Saturday also sees a Labour offensive against the government's proposals on grammer schools with journalist Owen Jones and Tulip Saddiq  Mp for Hampstead and Kilburn due to campaign at Kilburn tube station from 11am on Saturday.

Wednesday 11 November 2015

Brent Council Pension Fund performs poorly


The Brent Pension Fund Sub-Committee of Brent Council is one of those committees which gets quietly on with its work with little publicity or indeed public recognition. The Annual Report from 2014-15 from which the extract above is taken LINK does however deserve a wider airing. Brent is shown to be underperforming compared with other local government pension funds.

Clearly investment decisions have to be made on the basis of security versus risk but Scrutiny Committee may wish to have a closer look at how this operates in Brent.

Benefits are funded by contributions and returns on investment so this is a vital issue. As well as council employees in the scheme (4,179) there were (March 2015) 33 other employer organisations in the scheme (1,724). This includes, individually, schools which have become academies.

In March 2015 there were 5,311 Brent Council pensioners and 761 from other organisations. There were 6,501 deferred Brent Council pensions and 1,127 from other organisations. The high number of deferrals, above the number actually receiving a pension, may indicate people being unable to afford to retire in the present economic climate.




Tuesday 5 March 2013

Lucas: Government must reverse brutal economic policies to avoid disastrous slump

Caroline Lucas, MP, a member of the Green New Deal Group [2], challenged conventional IEA (Institute of Economnic Affairs)  thinking on the economy today by urging the Government to increase employment to reduce the deficit - channelling investment into urgently needed green infrastructure.

At a working lunch at the IEA, Lucas said
With scant evidence of the kind of strong recovery expected after previous post-war recessions, it's time to admit that austerity in the UK has failed and that an alternative approach to reducing the deficit is needed.

SINCE 2010, CENTRAL BANKERS AND POLITICIANS HAVE PRESIDED OVER THE APPLICATION OF BRUTAL ECONOMIC POLICIES THAT HAVE IMPOVERISHED THE INNOCENT, ENRICHED GLOBAL FINANCIAL ELITES, AND EXACERBATED THE WORLDWIDE SLUMP.
 
In our 2009 report, 'The Cuts Won't Work [3]'_the Green New Deal Group set out what is now clear: that austerity and cuts in public spending during a slump - when private debt has grown to become 5 times the size of public debt - is completely delusional economics.

It is extraordinary that the government focuses so ferociously on public debt - which now stands at 70% of GDP - but turns a complete blind eye to private debt - now at 420% of GDP. A massive overhang of private bank debt goes a long way to explain why banks are not lending and why private sector investment is stalling.

The Group also predicted the 'triple crunch': a credit-fuelled financial crisis, combined with accelerating climate change and growing energy insecurity, which would "develop into a perfect storm, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression".

So it has come to pass - we're now in the sixth year of a widespread, international depression, with 2.5 million unemployed in the UK, many millions more under-employed, and youth unemployment at tragic levels.

The impacts of the climate crisis are becoming ever clearer, with 2012 going down in history as a year in which our weather spun out of control - and having carelessly assigned the nation's energy security to the invisible and unaccountable 'hand of the market', we face an insecure energy future with all the economic implications that brings.

A programme of productive investment financed by loans from the government's own nationalised bank - the Bank of England - is a crucial way to reduce the public debt, channelling public money into projects such as a comprehensive programme for retrofitting Britain's ancient housing stock, increasing our energy security and reducing bills.

THIS IS NOT INDISCRIMINATE SPENDING, BUT ‘TRANSITIONAL INVESTMENT’, WHERE ENERGY AND MATERIALS ARE FOCUSSED ON INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WILL LEAD TO A REDUCTION OF DEMAND FOR THEM IN THE FUTURE.

A public works spending would succeed where traditional quantitative easing has failed - going straight to help employment and companies, and the projects which can add to national well-being, generating income through employment.
Caroline Lucas concluded:
Keynes argued and proved that such spending would pay for itself. The Government must now rise from its deep torpor, ditch its flawed economic orthodoxy and finally begin to undertake the level of public investment needed to reverse this disastrous slump.
 [1] http://www.iea.org.uk/
[2] http://www.greennewdealgroup.org/
[3] http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/cuts-wont-work
[4] http://www.carolinelucas.com

Sunday 4 November 2012

What's happening with Brent's 2013-14 budget?

Brent Expenditure and Income 2012-13

The Council Budget for 2013-14 should be on the agenda for the Full Council Meeting on November 19th according to the Council's budgetary process:
There is a Full Council meeting (usually in November) where the budget is raised as an issue. All Councillors of all political groups are invited to submit ideas, plans and suggestions for inclusion in the next year's budget. These suggestions are then taken away and discussed by the Executive (usually in December).

The Executive will then issue their proposals for the budget.

At the same time Scrutiny's Budget Panel is sitting and they also come up with their proposals by February. The report is considered by the Executive and, if required, changes are made to the proposals.

Finally, the proposals go to another Full Council meeting where they are voted on, and, whatever is agreed, is implemented as the council's budget for the next year.
However, there are reports that the Council is behind with the process this year perhaps as a result of changes in the officer and councillors involved in Finance.  By the second week in November last year Cllr Ann John had issued a 'Bad News' budget report LINK.

Is is likely that we will receive an 'Even More Bad News' report from Muhammed Butt soon. There has been no word from Cllr Ruth Moher, now Lead Member for Finance and Resources who took over the post from Butt following the 'coup'.

Meanwhile the Budget Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Thursday 15th November may give us some clues. What is beyond doubt is that with government grants reduced and pressures on council spending from homelessness and social care of the elderly the situation will be dire. Apart from the potential revenue from a rise in Council Tax (a tiny proportion of the overall budget which is mainly made up of government grants) there are few options open to the Council apart from making more cuts which will impact on the vulnerable, or taking a stand against the Coalition and devising a campaigning needs led budget and a consequent deficit budget.  

This would involve a real dialogue with trades unions, voluntary organisations, community groups, campaigning groups and residents. Time is limited and such  process should begin as soon as possible.

Background is provided by the mid-year Brent Treasury Report by Mick Bowden, Deputy Director of Finance. The Director of Finance, Clive Heaphy remains suspended and there is no word on the financial settlement for Gareth Daniel, the former Chief Executive.

The Report outlines theCapital Finance Requirement (CFR) requirements for the years ahead with a significant  increase next year:
 

31/03/12
Actual
31/03/2013
Estimate
31/03/2014
Estimate
31/03/2015
Estimate
CFR
£537m
£598m
£594m
£591m


 At the same time there is a significant  forecast reduction in 'usable' reserves:



31/03/2012
Actual
31/03/2013
Estimate
31/03/2014
Estimate
31/03/2015
Estimate
Usable Reserves
£58m
£37m
£30m
£24m

There has been a shift from short-term to long-term borrowing which remains under the limits set out by the Department for Communities and Local Government. An additional £20m has been borrowed since April 2012 and a rise in the rate of interest:


Borrowing
Balance on
01/04/2012
Debt Repaid
New
Borrowing
Balance on
30/09/2012
Short-term
£26.3m
£44.3m
£18m
0
Long-Term
£405.5m
£1.2m
£20m
£424.3
Total
£431.8m
£45.5m
£38m
£424.3
Average Rate %
4.45%


4.71%

The Report states that the Council expects to recover £4m of the £5m inested in Icelandic domiciled banks and £9m of the £10m invested in non-Iceland domiciled banks. The Council's investment income this year is estimated at only £0.1m .

The full Mid Year Report is available HERE