Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member: Finance

Forward Plan Ref: 2023/127

Contact: Kathy Wilcox, Head of Financial Strategy, Kathy.Wilcox@oxfordshire.gov.uk

Report by Director of Finance (CA13).

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

a)    Endorse the report and note the assumptions that will form the starting point for the 2024/25 budget as well as updates since the Medium Term Financial Strategy was agreed in February 2023 that need to be considered;

b)    Approve the budget and business planning process for 2024/25;

c)    Approve a three-year period for the medium-term financial strategy to 2026/27 and ten-year period for the capital programme to 2033/34 and;

d)    Note the requirement for the council to set a sustainable balanced budget which shows how income will equal spending plans.

Recommendations approved.

Cabinet had before it a report on the budget and business planning process for 2024/25. It explained the process for developing and agreeing the budget for 2024/25 and the assumptions on which the Council’s current medium term financial strategy (MTFS) agreed in February 2023 was based. It also provided updates on information arising from government and other announcements plus the on-going impact of challenges apparent in 2023/24 and new or emerging financial issues for 2024/25 and beyond which would be incorporated into the new MTFS.

Councillor Dan Levy. Cabinet Member for Finance, presented the report.

Councillor Levy moved and Councillor Sudbury seconded the recommendations, and they were approved.

RESOLVED to:-

a)    Endorse the report and note the assumptions that will form the starting point for the 2024/25 budget as well as updates since the Medium Term Financial Strategy was agreed in February 2023 that need to be considered;

b)    Approve the budget and business planning process for 2024/25;

c)    Approve a three-year period for the medium-term financial strategy to 2026/27 and ten-year period for the capital programme to 2033/34 and;

d)    Note the requirement for the council to set a sustainable balanced budget which shows how income will equal spending plans.