Agenda item

Council is asked to approve the recommendations set out on pages 94 and 95.

 

Please note that a full record of the of the discussion is available on the recording of the meeting at Budget Council 19 February 2025 - YouTube at time 0:43:10-1:49:07.

 

City Mayor seconded by Councillor Cassidy, to move:-

 

a.    “Approve the release of the Capital Fund, a revenue reserve, to the Managed Reserve strategy of £90m. (see para 4.4 of the report submitted by the Director of Finance) ;

b.    Approve the change in financing for the 2024/25 capital programme, to include prudential borrowing (see para 4.5 of the report);

c.    Approve reductions to the 2024/25 capital programme as described at paragraph 4.8;

d.     Approve the capital programme, together with the necessary prudential borrowing, for schemes described in this report and summarised at Appendices 2 to 5;

e.    For those schemes designated immediate starts, delegate authority to the lead director to commit expenditure, subject to the normal requirements of contract procedure rules, rules concerning land acquisition and finance procedure rules;

f.     Delegate authority to the City Mayor to determine a plan of spending for each policy provision, that may be added in-year, and to commit expenditure up to the maximum available;

g.    For the purposes of finance procedure rules:

·         Determine that service resources shall consist of service revenue contributions; HRA revenue contributions; and government grants/third party contributions ringfenced for specific purposes.

·         Designate the operational estate, the children’s capital maintenance programme, the highways maintenance programme and the transport improvement programme as programme areas, within which the director can reallocate resources to meet operational requirements.

h.    Delegate to the City Mayor:

·         Authority to increase any scheme in the programme, or add a new scheme to the programme, subject to a maximum of £10m corporate resources in each instance and to borrow whilst remaining within the prudential limits for debt which are proposed in the treasury management strategy (elsewhere on the Council  agenda);

·         Authority to reduce or delete any capital scheme, subject to a maximum reduction of £10m; and

·         Authority to transfer any “policy provision” to the “immediate starts” category.

i.      Delegate to directors, in consultation with the relevant deputy/assistant mayor, authority to incur expenditure up to a maximum of £250k per scheme in respect of policy provisions, that may be added in-year, on design and other professional fees and preparatory studies, but not any other type of expenditure.

j.      Approve the capital strategy at Appendix 6.”

 

 

AMENDMENT

 

Moved by Councillor Rae Bhatia, seconded by Councillor Kitterick:

 

“This Council accepts the following amendments to the Capital Budget 2025-26 to find savings of £4.78m from the sections listed below and spend them on services/projects also listed below. These amendments focus on the frontline services which the city so desperately needs to preserve and improve. This amendment also introduces extra rigour and control on the delegate powers to City Mayor also listed below.

1.            Reduce the Fleet Replacement programme from £8.3m to £7.3m thus generating the unallocated saving of £1m (Page 97 section 1.8)

2.            Reduce the Policy Provisions further from £19.4m to £18.4m thus generating unallocated saving of £1m (Page 97 section table 1.8)

3.            Reduce the Transport Improvement Programme from £2.58 to £2.08m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.5m (Page 99 section 1.19 c)

4.            Reduce the allocation for Operational Estate Capital Maintenance from £1.97m to £1.44m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.53m (Page 100 1.20 a)

5.            Reduce the allocation for Leycroft Road Deport from £3.79m to £3.29m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.5m (Page 100 1.20 d)

6.            Reduce the allocation for Strategic Sites from £5.04m to £4.54 thus generating unallocated saving of £0.5m (Page 101 1.23 a)

7.            Remove the allocation of £0.55m for KRIII Café and generate unallocated saving of £0.55m (Page 101 section 1.22 a)

8.            Reduce the Feasibility Studies allocation from £0.7m to £0.5m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.2m (Page 102 section C)

 

Total saving of £4.78m

Where to allocate these savings:

a.    Increase the funding for Local Environment works from £0.4m to £0.6m (Page 100 section 1.21 b)

Includes: more residential car parking, benches, dustbins, repair or replace street name signs, community lighting, CCTV cameras, walking footpaths, improve children’s play areas etc.

b.    Increase the funding for Flood and Drainage Schemes from 0.3m to 0.6m (Page 100 1.21d)

3. Highway Drainage - Increase funding from £0.3m to £0.5m (Page 99 1.19b Appendix 4)
4. Street cleaning equipment - Increase funding from £0.45m to £0.55m (Page 101 1.22 b)
5. Increase funding for Public Toilets Improvement and Automatic Locking from £0.18m to £0.38m (Page 101 1.22 c)
6. £0.25m for MUGA in Beaumont Leys
7. £0.5m for Aylestone environmental and flood related projects
8. £0.5m for Victoria Park Improvements
9. £0.5m for dedicated Golden Mile/Belgrave Road Improvement (rest £1.5m should be sought from LLEP disbandment funds)
10. £0.4m for Thurncourt Road Shopping Precinct

 

Total spend of £4.78m

 

Changes to the Delegate to the City Mayor (Page 95 section e)

1.            Authority to increase any scheme in the programme, or add a new scheme to the programme, subject to a maximum of £5m corporate resources in each instance and to borrow whilst remaining within the prudential limits for debt which are proposed in the treasury management strategy.”

 

Attachment

Advice of Director of Finance

 

1.    Reduce the Fleet Replacement programme from £8.3m to £7.3m thus generating the unallocated saving of £1m (Page 97 section 1.8)

 

“Fleet” covers the whole of the councils fleet including housing maintenance vehicles. The programme has already been reduced and vehicle lives extended (page 7, para 1.8 table). We are now at the point that vehicles cost more to maintain than to replace them (maintenance costs and hire vehicles whilst off the road) therefore to reduce this further will simply increase the revenue cost to the general fund and the HRA.

 

In simple terms, half of the fleet are housing maintenance vehicles and therefore this will reduce our ability to maintain our housing stock. There are a large number of plant vehicles such as gritters, highways maintenance vehicles, gulley emptiers etc and therefore again this would adversely affect services.

 

Finally, fleet also includes our home to school transport vehicles. If these are not replaced and/or are off the road then we increase the use of taxis at significant revenue cost.

 

This is a high risk proposal resulting in increased revenue expenditure.

 

2.    Reduce the Policy Provisions further from £19.4m to £18.4m thus generating unallocated saving of £1m (Page 97 section table 1.8)

 

Without knowing which policy provisions, you will be reducing I am unable to advice on the impact of this proposal.

 

3.    Reduce the Transport Improvement Programme from £2.58 to £2.08m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.5m (Page 99 section 1.19 c)

 

This is funded by government grant from the Department for Transport (DfT). Whilst it is unringfenced and technically could be spent on non-highways schemes, we do have to complete onerous returns to the DfT regarding our spend. It would be immediately clear to the DfT that we have spent this grant on non-highways schemes and I have no doubt our future funding allocation will be cut. Therefore, the impact would be to lose transport investment twice.

 

This is a high risk proposal likely to reduce future capital funding

4.    Reduce the allocation for Operational Estate Capital Maintenance from £1.97m to £1.44m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.53m (Page 100 1.20 a)

 

This allocation has already been reduced (page 7, para 1.8 table) and is at a minimal level to maintain our operational buildings… libraries, leisure centres, community centres as well as offices. If buildings fall below safe standards they will have to be closed, reactive maintenance will be limited so for example when we have mechanical plant issues like we have seen at Braunstone and Leicester Leys, we will not have the capital funding to undertake repairs and facilities will remain closed for longer periods. If safety and compliance standards are not maintained, buildings will have to be closed.

 

5.    Reduce the allocation for Leycroft Road Deport from £3.79m to £3.29m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.5m (Page 100 1.20 d)

 

I am unable to advise whether the scheme can be delivered with a reduction in funding of this level

 

6.    Reduce the allocation for Strategic Sites from £5.04m to £4.54 thus generating unallocated saving of £0.5m (Page 101 1.23 a)  

This funding is required to release housing land at Ashton Green and therefore negatively impacts on capital receipts and housing delivery. Again, I cannot set out a more detailed impact in the timeframe.

 

This is a high risk proposal

 

7.    Remove the allocation of £0.55m for KRIII Café and generate unallocated saving of £0.55m (Page 101 section 1.22 a)

 

This is a spend to save scheme which will reduce future income generation ability at the Visitor Centre.

 

8.    Reduce the Feasibility Studies allocation from £0.7m to £0.5m thus generating unallocated saving of £0.2m (Page 102 section C)

 

Total saving of £4.78m”

 

Following the debate, the Lord Mayor put the amendment to vote.

 

Under Council Procedure Rule 29 of the Council’s Constitution, three Councillors requested a recorded vote.

 

For the amendment:

Councillors Adatia, Barnes, Cank, Chauhan, Dave, Gopal, Haq, Joshi, Karavadra, Kennedy-Lount, Kitterick, Mahesh, Modhwadia, Orton, Osman, Porter, Rae Bhatia, Singh Patel, Westley.

 

Against the amendment:

Councillors: Agath, Aldred, Aqbany, Bajaj, Barton, Batool, Bonham, Cassidy, Clarke, Cole, Cutkelvin, Dawood, Dempster, Halford, Kaur Saini, Malik

Mohammed, Moore, Pantling, Pickering, Russell, Singh Johal, Singh Sangha, Sood, Soulsby (City Mayor), Surti, Waddington, Whittle, Zaman.

 

The Lord Mayor declared that the amendment was lost.

 

The Lord Mayor put the original motion to the vote.

 

The Lord Mayor declared the motion carried.