Cabinet to discuss financial strategy

Hastings Borough Council's Cabinet is meeting to discuss the medium-term financial strategy (MTFS) on Friday 19 November.
The MTFS runs until the 2024/25 financial year and the report warns that reserves are set to fall below minimum recommended levels within the 2021/22 financial year unless further savings are made this year.
The pressures on the budget are mainly as a result of spiralling housing costs. Spending on homelessness is predicted to increase by £457,000 in the 2021-22 financial year, and by around £931,000 in a full financial year. Housing costs are expected to continue to rise as the cost of living increases and as more residents struggle to find a safe and secure affordable home.
Alongside this continued increasing cost, there has also been a reduction in income from car parking, business rates and rental due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The temporary closure of services like the West Hill Cliff Railway and works at Battle Road have also significantly impacted on the budget. It is anticipated that these will be one-off costs which will return to normal levels in the future.
On top of the savings for the current financial year, the council will also need to find further savings of £3.1m to balance the 2022-23 budget.
Cllr Peter Chowney, lead councillor for finance, said: "This report details how critical it is for the council to make savings within the budget to ensure the budget can be balanced. Over the last decade, the council's funding from government has dropped by around 70%, meaning many difficult decisions have already been made.
"The medium-term financial strategy focuses on our key priorities. This is the start of how we find the savings that can be made to balance the books and avoid the reserves falling below the recommended £6m.
"The biggest pressure on our finances is the rapidly increasing cost of housing homeless households.  The numbers needing temporary accommodation are increasing slowly, but that's not the main reason. Costs are escalating because people simply can't afford the rents of the housing that's available, so can't move out of temporary accommodation.
"We need the government to recognise this problem, and either increase housing benefit so it covers actual rents, or cap local rents at the level covered by housing benefit. We will continue to lobby the government for additional funding to help with the costs of temporary accommodation, but it's a change in national policy that's really needed. And in the longer term, we need councils and housing associations to be given the money to build more genuinely affordable, social rented homes."
If approved by Cabinet, the report will go to Full Council in December as part of the budget setting process.
The Cabinet meeting will be available to watch on the council website at 2.30pm on Friday 19 November. A link will be posted in the week of the meeting. The Full Council meeting will also be available to watch on 15 December.