Budgeting
114.1 Principles
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Service levels and budgets in Service Plans must reflect the resources allocated to them.
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Contingencies must not be held within service budgets. They should be discussed with the Section 151 Officer and a decision agreed on how they will be dealt with.
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All budgets must be assigned to a responsible budget holder.
114.2 Processes
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For the purposes of setting budgets and monitoring, budgets will be prepared to subjective code level e.g. Employees, to £’000 in consultation with the Service Accountancy Support Team. Although prepared at this level reports to Cabinet and Scrutiny and Review Panels are likely to be at a summary level.
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A monitoring process will regularly review the effectiveness and operation of budget preparation and ensure that any corrective action is taken.
114.3 Guidelines
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To enable Members and Officers to concentrate on the areas of change, detailed budgets need not be prepared initially. Rather, base budget information will be provided in July that will consist of;
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There will also be an estimate of the expected FSS/RSG settlements by major service block based on data available at that time. This should then produce a forecast of the gap between resources and expenditure that the Cabinet can take a view on.
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The Cabinet will then provide guidance on how Service Plans are to be produced in the light of this gap.
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In November draft Service Plans are produced reflecting this guidance and other issues. These might include new or reduced services, best value reviews and income generation and sustainability issues. As with previous years, Members may wish to indicate that any increased service delivery costs are funded from equivalent savings or funding sources other that the Council Tax and that this is reflected in Service Plans.
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After receipt of the Provisional FSS in November/December, plans can be reconsidered if necessary in January 2002.
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Detailed budgets for monitoring purposes can be prepared from November onwards, after draft Service Plans have been produced.
114.4 Timetable
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Revenue Budget Preparation |
Budget Monitoring |
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