IN HIS OWN WORDS, Lutfur Rahman described the budget that he intends to bring to the Council in February. He was speaking at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, 7th January.
The budget papers before the Cabinet were not the final ones: small adjustments will be made in the next month, before it is considered by the full Council. However, the main facts are there.
Several documents make up the budget. The Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) shows the income the Council expects to achieve, and how it plans to spend the money. Other documents cover issues such as housing and capital spending.
Here is what Mayor Lutfur Rahman had to say, introducing these documents to the Cabinet.
While there is still a long way to go before this MTFS report is adopted at February’s budget full council meeting, I would like to say a few words on the journey that we as an authority have been on since this administration has taken office.
This MTFS report is the latest in a series of strategies that demonstrates the seriousness with which this council now takes its financial responsibility.
It is a demonstration of how fiscal prudency and investment in our borough and its residents do not need to come at the expense of one another. They can be jointly achieved through diligence; hard work; and a commitment to finding efficiencies while protecting the vital frontline services and staff integral to delivering for our residents.
We were scoffed at in our first year for frontloading investment and turbocharging service redesign and improvements through the one-off use of reserves.
However, we were confident in the belief that for too long, vital investments that were once available to residents had either been scrapped or cut to the bone, and a new approach with a new offer was required.
We believed strongly that – through meticulous and continuous reviewing of this council’s finances, alongside a strengthening of financial governance mechanisms that had been neglected for nearly a decade – we could replenish the reserves; revitalise our services; and improve the lives and quality of life of our residents.
And this MTFS report once again demonstrates that we have.
•We have removed all reliance on the use of reserves, and have in fact increased the amount above the statutory recommendations and in line with CIPFA’s good governance guidelines.
•And due to this new approach of twin-principle financial planning – fiscal prudency and investment in frontline services – we are able to continue to:
•Provide Education Maintenance Allowance and University Bursaries for our poorest students, giving them a chance to pursue their academic dreams, regardless of their class or circumstances.
•Provide Free School Uniform support for 7,000 students a year, meaning that families are not left fretting at the end of the month on how they will pay their bills and keep their children warm and comfortable at school.
•Provide Free School Meals for all children in both primary and secondary schools, guaranteeing them a healthy, nourishing lunch that will keep them alert and attentive in their classes.
•Provide Free Swimming sessions for all women and girls aged 16 and over, and all men aged 55 and over. We take health inequality incredibly seriously, and want to ensure that hard to reach adults have the opportunity to exercise and enhance their wellbeing.
•On top of the is, our approach is enabling the building of a state of the art £67million leisure centre at St George’s in Shadwell, alongside 33 new, 100% social rent, family-sized homes.
•Continue to invest £13.7million a year in our Youth Services, keeping open at least one youth centre in every ward, providing bespoke extracurricular support to young people across the borough.
•Continue to invest in London’s most ambitious housebuilding programme. By May 2026, we will have delivered on over 6,000 new homes, with nearly 3,500 additional and predominantly social homes to be delivered on council-owned land in the coming years.
•Invest an additional £110million on top of the £140million already earmarked into the improvement of our existing housing stock – a programme of Decent Homes 2 that builds on the work we undertook during our previous administration. That’s a quarter of a billion pounds investment into our existing housing stock.
•And we can continue to make our borough safe, with over £6million invested in community safety measures, including 71 new THEOs; a dedicated drugs squad; and millions invested in upgrading existing and installing new CCTV cameras across the borough.
These are just some of the groundbreaking policies that we can continue to deliver thanks to a measured and sensible approach to this authority’s finances.
Gone are the days where accounts remained unsigned; savings targets are missed; and overspending was allowed to run rampant.
We have implemented an approach that prioritises continual reviewing and health-checking of our finances, and I will ask the Lead Member to expand on this during his comments on the report.
This MTFS report shows the benefits of this approach, and maintains investment in frontline services while embedding a shift toward prevention and resilience, in line with London Councils’ call for systemic reform.
I would like to thank the Chief Executive; the Corporate Director for Resources and his team; and the Lead Member for their tireless work in ensuring that we could deliver a robust; sustainable; and transformative budget.
●Read more about it: Council passes Mayor Rahman’s “people’s budget” Labour budget: is it austerity by the back door?