Archived decisions

Appendix A

Constituent Authority Consultation Meeting to discuss 2002/03 underspending, supplementary levy 2003/04 and balances 2004/05 - 14 October 2003

The members in attendance were Councillors Thornber (Hampshire County Council) and Horne (in his HFRA capacity, though he is also a Portsmouth City Council member). Karen Ward (Southampton City Council office) attended on behalf of Councillor Vinson. Other officers present were Malcolm Eastwood and David Howells (Fire and Rescue Service), Jon Pittam (in his role as County Treasurer) and Paul Carey-Kent (in his role as Deputy Treasurer to the Fire Authority).

The following approaches were agreed:

· The whole of the Fire Authority's 2002/03 underspending (£655,000) will be repaid to the Constituent Authorities pro rata to their tax bases in accordance with usual arrangements.

· The Fire Authority will determine, at its meeting in December, the extent of any supplementary levy required to fund pressures which have arisen as a result of items either not known about or not quantifiable at the time of setting the 2003/04 budget. This may have to be a best estimate based on information at the time, as the full implementation costs of the firefighters' pay award may still not be known at that time. The main area in which additional costs are expected to be confirmed is pay: £432,000 of additional cost is already know of for 2003/04, but this cost is likely to increase substantially primarily due to the implementation of special responsibility allowances which could add up to 5% to the pay bill. Other new pressures have arisen associated with the modernisation and precepting agendas, quantified at £125,000 at this stage. Constituent authorities expressed the view that whilst the impact of additional pay increases was fully accepted as a basis for a supplementary levy, they would expect some attempt to manage other pressures by reprioritising with the fire budget.

· Although there is no logical relationship between the 2002/03 underspend and the need for any supplementary levy, it was acknowledged that the return of the underspend to constituent authorities should assist them in funding any supplementary levy.

· Constituent Authorities agreed to contribute £615,000 (pro rate to tax bases) towards building up balances for the Fire Authority, this being on the basis of un-earmarked reserves - deemed to be at 1.2% of expenditure - as applied to this year's Fire & Rescue budget of £51.3m.

· The Fire Authority should make an assessment in January 2004 of its likely outturn budget position. In the light of that, constituent authorities will then take a view on what will be the appropriate policy for handling any under or overspends at the year end, eg it might be judged appropriate to agree in advance that adjustments should be made so that any such amount is added to/taken from the balances of the newly-precepting Fire Authority.

Whilst the above was taken to be the overall view of constituent authorities, it was noted that Portsmouth City Council were not fully represented at the meeting.