The Budget and the Libraries Consultation

A commenter asks how we can pass a budget before the Libraries consultation ends today.  Firstly, it is important to note that we have a legal duty to set a balanced budget by 10 March as well as a practical imperative to do so before the Council Tax bills go out for April.

However, although the budget we passed is based on certain assumptions, every year some of these assumptions turn out to to be incorrect and the actual spending turns out to be different from the spend predicted in the Budget.  For instance, we have assumptions around inflation and fuel prices which are often factored in to the amount we pay our contractors.  If we have picked the wrong level (as we may well have done) we are likely to have pay various contractors either more of less than we expected.  That is just one example.  Last year, it looked at one point as if we were going to overspend dramatically because of George Osborne's in year cuts to our budget, taking an unexpectedly high number of children into care and pressures in adult social services.  We therefore cut spending in various areas we didn't expect in order to bring the budget back into line.

If we change the proposed strategy on libraries to spend more in some way, we would need to make compensating savings somewhere else in the Budget.  If, for instance, we were to opt to keep a library open instead of closing it that probably implies making more staff redundant.  Therefore the budget decision does not automatically determine the decision on libraries.