Agenda, decisions and minutes

(A)       The Lord Provost welcomed Councillor Lawrence back to the Council following the Dyce/Bucksburn/Danestone by-election on 23 February 2023 and congratulated him on his election.

(B)       The Lord Provost expressed his warm wishes to Councillor Kusznir and his wife on the birth of their son at the weekend.

(C)       The Lord Provost noted that Mike Middleton, former area Convener of the GMB trade union, had sadly passed away and expressed his condolences to Mike’s family friends on behalf of the Council.

The Council resolved:-

to concur with the Lord Provost’s remarks.

The Interim Chief Officer - Governance acknowledged that Members would have a large number of connections in relation to the business before them, however, on this occasion, they were not required to make transparency statements, only declarations of interest. No interests were declared.   

Councillor Malik moved as a procedural motion, seconded by Councillor Tissera:-

That the Council suspend Standing Order 14.5.3 in order to hear deputations.

On a division, there voted:-

For the procedural motion  (18)  -  Councillors Ali, Blake, Bonsell, Boulton, Brooks, Crockett, Farquhar, Graham, Grant, Houghton, Kusznir, Lawrence, Macdonald, McLeod, Malik, Thomson, Tissera and Watson.

Against the procedural motion  (24)  -  Lord Provost; Depute Provost; and Councillors Al-Samarai, Allard, Alphonse, Bouse, Hazel Cameron, Clark, Cooke, Copland, Cormie, Davidson, Fairfull, Greig, Henrickson, Hutchison, MacGregor, McLellan, McRae, Mennie, Nicoll, Radley, van Sweeden and Yuill.

Absent from the division  (1)  -  Councillor Massey.

The Council resolved:-

to reject the procedural motion.

The Council had before it a report by the Director of Commissioning which presented the Council Delivery Plan for 2023/24.

The report recommended:-

that the Council -

(a)           note the content of the Council Delivery Plan 2023/24; and

(b)           instruct the Chief Executive to realign any of the delivery commitments set out in the Plan that may be required, as a result of any potential Council budget decisions, to meet Council’s instructions.

The Council resolved:-

(i)             to approve the recommendations; and

(ii)           to note that Tier 1 Prevention on page 22 of the Delivery Plan should read 152 and 54% and this would be corrected prior to the Delivery Plan being published.

The Council had before it a report by the Director of Commissioning which advised of the approach taken to embed prevention and early intervention into the commissioning cycle and shape budget decisions to positively deliver on outcomes for Aberdeen.

The report recommended:-

that the Council -

(a)         note the development to date of the Council’s approach to resource allocation in aid of supporting the deliberate shift to prevention as advocated by the Council’s Target Operating Model and agree to further develop it by instructing the following corporate wide developments:

1)         instruct the Chief Officer - Finance in consultation with the Chief Officer - Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to develop a new financial reporting template to capture the prevention and early intervention tiered resource allocation model, and to include this in the annual budget process, with effect from the 2024/25 budget cycle, to demonstrate the proposed allocation of resources per tier;

2)         instruct the Chief Officer - Finance, in consultation with the Chief Officer - Governance and Chief Officer - Commercial and Procurement to work with the Group entities and Tier 1 ALEOs to prepare a statement of tiered resource allocation across the Aberdeen City Council family group, and to include this in the annual budget process with effect from the 2024/25 budget cycle;

3)         instruct the Chief Officer - People and Organisational Development in consultation with the Chief Officer - Early Intervention and Community and Empowerment and Chief Officer - Finance to develop a training programme for staff and elected members on early intervention and prevention and report on delivery progress to the Staff Governance Committee;

4)         instruct the Chief Officer - Governance to amend the committee reporting template to include commentary on tiered resource allocation on prevention, early intervention and response services; and

5)         instruct the Chief Officer - Data & Insights to work through the Aberdeen Health Determinants Research Collaborative to ensure that the Council’s approach to resource allocation and the continued shift to prevention is supported by appropriate evidence, research and evaluation.

(b)         as part of the next stage of the development of the resource allocation approach to underpin the shift to prevention, agree to instruct the following on-going spend analysis using the three tier intervention framework:

1.            instruct the Chief Officer - Strategic Place Planning to include a tiered analysis of resource requirements in the refreshed Local Housing Strategy  to be presented for approval to the Communities, Housing and Public Protection Committee noting the significance of housing         as one of the key determinants of population health;

2)         instruct the Chief Education Officer and Chief Officer - Integrated Children’s and Family Services to undertake tiered analysis of the resource requirements to support the refreshed Integrated Children’s Services Plan (2023-2026) and present the Integrated Children’s Services Plan to the Education and Children’s Services Committee for approval noting the significance of early years interventions in population health;

(c)          note the approved IJB Strategic Plan (2022-2025) and request the Chief Officer of Aberdeen City Health and Social Care Partnership to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

At this juncture, the Council was advised that the General Fund Revenue Budget and Capital Programme and Common Good Budget items would be taken together as one item

(A)       The Council had before it a report by the Director of Resources which provided information on both the revenue budget for 2023/24 and capital programme for the period 2023/24 to 2027/28 in order that approved budgets and Council Tax value could be set by the Council for the year commencing 1 April 2023.

The report recommended:-

that the Council -

2.1       Balance Sheet Recommendations

2.1.1   note the projected balance sheet position including the reserves as at 31 March 2023, shown at Appendix 1;

2.1.2   consider the Council’s Financial Resilience Framework measures, included at Appendix 2, and Prudential Indicators, at Appendix 3, providing current and forward-looking data and insight to aid understanding of the implications of capital investment prior to setting Council Tax and the Revenue and Capital budgets;

2.1.3   approve the Prudential Indicators as attached at Appendix 3;

2.1.4   approve the General Fund Capital Programme as attached at Appendix 4;

2.1.5   consider the capital projects described in Appendix 5, which were referred to the General Fund Capital Programme;           

2.1.6   approve the Revenue and Capital Reserves Statement for 2023/24 as detailed in Appendix 6;

2.1.7   approve the implementation of the guidance on Service Concessions flexibility that is detailed in Appendix 7;

2.1.8   agree as part of the implementation of the Service Concession flexibility that the costs accounted for in years beyond the contract term would be met from the 3Rs schools and Lochside unitary charge budgets released at the end of their respective contracts;

2.1.9   approve the use of the retrospective funds released by the Service Concession flexibility for voluntary severance/early retirement payments from 2022/23 onwards (c.£33m), based on the commitment to no compulsory redundancies, the approved Medium Term Financial Strategy and TOM1.2 setting out the need for recurring staff savings over the next five years of £40m; and note that the cost of accessing the retrospective reserve would incur financing costs of c.£2m, which would be incorporated into the Council’s treasury management arrangements;

2.2      Medium-Term Financial Projections

2.2.1   note the forecast medium-term financial projection for the period ending 31 March 2028 as shown in paragraph 3.18;

2.2.2   note that the Scottish Government published its Resource Spending Review in May 2022 that stated that Local Government should expect to receive a ‘flat cash’ settlement for the period 2023/24 to 2025/26, and that following the publication of the Local Government Financial Settlement for 2023/24, on a like for like basis, this position was borne out with a 0.2% increase to revenue funding being awarded for financial year 2023/24;

2.2.3   note that the Local Government financial settlement annually had to be supplemented by allocations from other Scottish Government portfolios, and Ministers had guaranteed £1bn out of the current £1.4bn received by Local Government;

2.2.4   instruct the Chief Officer - Finance to refresh the Medium Term Financial Strategy and report to the Council by the end of December 2023;

2.2.5   instruct the Chief Executive to review the existing organisational structure, in light of the approved budget and to report back to Council by  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The Council had before it a report by the Director of Resources which provided information to enable the Council to approve a revenue and capital budget for 2023/24, including setting of the rents and other charges on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) for the financial year.

The report recommended:-

that the Council -

(a)          approve the budget as attached in Appendix 1, pages 2 to 3, of the report;

(b)          approve the setting of the weekly unrebated rents for municipal houses taking account of proposals outlined for a fixed rent policy, as detailed in Appendix 1, pages 2 to 8 of the report, to take effect from Monday 1 May 2023;

(c)          approve the level of revenue contribution to the Housing Capital budget for 2023/24 as well as note the provisional contribution for the subsequent four financial years as detailed in Appendix 1, pages 11 to 13;

(d)          agree to maintain the working balances at 10% to meet future operational requirements and risks, noting that if the Housing Revenue Account recorded a deficit and had no reserves then the Council’s General Fund must make a contribution to balance the Account;

(e)          approve the level of miscellaneous rents and service charges, including Heat with Rent as detailed in Appendix 1, pages 9 to 10 to take effect from Monday 1May 2023;

(f)           approve, based on a rental increase of 4% the Base Capital Programme for the financial year 2023/24 Appendix 1, pages 11 to 13;

(g)          note the indicative level of the Base Capital Programme for the financial years 2024/25 to 2024/28 Appendix 1, pages 11 to 13;

(h)          delegate authority to the Chief Officer - Capital, following consultation with the Chief Officer - Commercial and Procurement, to procure the necessary professional services and construction works referred to in Appendix 1 entitled ‘New Housing Capital Programme Budget’ without the need for further approval from any other committee of the Council subject to due diligence, consistency with the financial model and affordability;

(i)            note that the delivery and programme management of the new build project was being delivered with the use of frameworks for professional services contracts which included, programme and project management, technical support and quality assurance all of which was being delivered with the normal fee scales for Housing Projects. These services would continue across the programme as new projects were identified;

(j)            note that the current long term Council house rent policy runs out on the 31 March 2023, and instruct the Chief Officer - Early Intervention and Community Empowerment to undertake a consultation on a further long term Council house rent policy for inclusion in the 2024/25 budget process;

(k)          note the recommendation in the Prevention and Early Intervention report also being considered at the Council meeting of 1 March 2023 to undertake tiered analysis of resource requirements in the refreshed Local Housing Strategy to be presented for approval to the Communities, Housing and Public Protection Committee, noting the significance of housing as one of the key  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The Lord Provost advised that this was likely to be the last Council meeting for Raymond Leiper, Town Sergeant, who was due to retire at the end of March after 48 years’ service to the Council. The Lord Provost paid tribute to Raymond and wished him well for his retirement.

Councillors Grant, Yuill, Crockett, Nicoll, Houghton and Boulton each paid their own tributes to Raymond.

The Council resolved:-

to concur with the remarks of the Lord Provost and the various Councillors.