Heathers Report to Worthen and Shelve Annual Parish Council

Worthen with Shelve Annual Parish Council April 2018
Shropshire Council report
“017 -18 has been an eventful year. This time last we were in the midst of elections.
The next few years seem to be proving they will be the same with a number of challenges facing Shropshire Council as the Government continues to reduce its funding. That will be removed totally by 2020.
These are mainly financial and how to deliver the services that residents want and need and /or are statutory within the financial resources available to the council.
Council reorganisation seems to be on the cards again. Dorset is going to be replaced by two unitary councils due to their financial difficulties, other District Councils are merging and Also restructuring is being considered in Buckinghamshire and several other areas.. Northamptonshire Council has intervention as they could not balance their budget and there are also a number of other councils are also having significant problems.
Shropshire being a Unitary Council already is in a little better position but as already stated there are some very challenging years ahead of us.
The Financial Strategy as proposed by the Conservative Group in February show that for the next 5 years projected expenditure exceeds income. Peter Nutting the council leader states though that his aim is to bring the finances into balance within 2 years. Cuts to services have just started to be announced. These include further funding cuts to Libraries, Children’s Centre closures and others seen below.
The past year, 2017/18, after the Chief Executive imposed a 5 month spending and recruitment freeze plus use of one off reserves it is estimated that there will be a budget underspend of £59k. This compares with the report at the end of August which predicted a £5M overspend. In order to achieve this position there were increases in the transfer from reserves. A number of projected savings that were predicted last February could not be achieved were not delivered. Over 17% of the savings were not made. A number of budgets were also overspent, hence the emergency actions the Chief Executive had to make.
For this year the council has imposed the maximum increase in precept it is legally able to. Shropshire Council part of the precept you pay has been increased by 5.99% has been imposed for this year. A number of cuts were shown in the budget papers for this year but with no details. The proposed budget put forward by the Conservative Cabinet also includes taking money from reserves to pay for the day to day running of the council. Some of the cuts proposed are controversial and again some I feel are not deliverable include

Other issues

Other items that may be of interest.
Even though Parish Councils, the Fire Authorities and Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and Herefordshire Council objected to it Amber Rudd agreed to it and the Police & Crime Commissioner is now to take over control of our Fire and Rescue service.
The quarry swimming pool. A report will shortly be published which I understand will recommend the Swimming Pool will stay in the centre of Shrewsbury and not be moved to Sundorn.