We want your views on how the Partnership, which leads Torbay Council, plans to set the future direction for the Bay. Three consultations are being launched and you’re invited to have your say.
The first is on a draft Community and Corporate Plan, which has been prepared by the Cabinet and takes into account views we heard at our Community Conference in September. This plan identifies the ambition and visions of the council for the next four years, and sets out how we intend to deliver them.
Please read the plan and tell us by 24 January 2020 what you think.
- Have we got our ambition, our visions and the priority areas right?
- Which aspects of the Plan are most important to you?
- How can we work together with the community to turn the Plan into actions?
The second consultation, which runs until 31 January 2020, relates to a new Housing Strategy and this sets out the Cabinet’s plans to meet one of its priorities - to improve the delivery, affordability and quality of housing in Torbay.
This draft Strategy is a work in progress and the Cabinet is keen to continue its work with partners and communities to identify how best to ensure that all our residents have access to good quality homes that are affordable and meet their particular needs.
The final consultation is on the Partnership’s budget proposals for 2020/2021. We continue to face financial pressures arising from years of central government austerity measures and increasing demand on high cost services such as social care.
We are likely to receive £6.5m of Revenue Support Grant from central government next year – that compares with £42 million in 2013/2014.
We still do not know how much money the Government will make available for local authorities after next year or how that money will be distributed, but we estimated that we need to fill a funding gap of approximately £10.5 million to balance the budget in 2020/2021 and more than £18m by 2022/23. That’s on top of the £82m in saving and efficiencies we have made in the last 7 years to achieve a balanced budget.
Approximately £2.5 million of the proposals for 2020/21 require decisions to be made by the Council and we are consulting on these. The remaining funding gap will be closed with a variety of measures which have already been agreed in previous years, many of which are being delivered through our Transformation Programme. This includes raising additional income to a total of £5.1m a year through a portfolio of investments through the Investment and Regeneration Fund, efficiencies through a new delivery partner for the Riviera International Conference Centre and reducing contract fees.
Despite the financial challenges, the Cabinet is proposing to invest in Children’s Services to ensure that we can continue to deliver our Improvement Plan. A £250,000 Community Enablement Fund is also proposed to help communities across Torbay work together.
As part of the consultation, it is also seeking views on a number of proposals which could be implemented in future years and this includes changes to the services which are currently provided by TOR2.
The budget is based on the proposal to increase Council Tax by 1.99% and a further 2% for the adult social care precept as agreed by the Government.
Leader of the Council, Steve Darling, said: “We are committed to engaging with and working with our communities to create a thriving Torbay which we can all be proud of. That is why we are really keen to hear your views on all three of our consultations which are now live.
We want to ensure that you agree with our future direction as set out in our draft Community and Corporate Plan and in our Housing Strategy.
With regard to the budget – we can’t pretend that the proposals have been easy to develop, particularly as we face increasing demands for costly statutory services such as in Children’s Services. We have tried to prioritise additional spending in this important area to ensure all of our children have the best life chances.
However, as we are no longer proposing to create new town councils there will be more services that will be impacted as we try to plug the funding gap. We want to work with our communities and partners to find alternative solutions to keep these services in place if at all possible.”
The budget proposals can be found on the Budget 2020/21 page.
The consultations will all be live this week on the consultation page.
News archive
- October 2024 (9)
- September 2024 (17)
- August 2024 (7)
- July 2024 (24)
- June 2024 (8)
- May 2024 (25)
- April 2024 (19)
- March 2024 (17)
- February 2024 (16)
- January 2024 (14)
- December 2023 (14)
- November 2023 (30)
- October 2023 (21)
- September 2023 (22)
- August 2023 (18)
- July 2023 (17)
- June 2023 (14)
- May 2023 (11)
- April 2023 (9)
- March 2023 (36)
- February 2023 (22)
- January 2023 (26)
- December 2022 (18)
- November 2022 (24)
- October 2022 (18)
- September 2022 (13)
- August 2022 (15)
- July 2022 (22)
- June 2022 (14)
- May 2022 (35)
- April 2022 (23)
- March 2022 (32)
- February 2022 (18)
- January 2022 (14)
- December 2021 (22)
- November 2021 (22)
- October 2021 (25)
- September 2021 (23)
- August 2021 (18)
- July 2021 (26)
- June 2021 (24)
- May 2021 (21)
- April 2021 (21)
- March 2021 (33)
- February 2021 (30)
- January 2021 (27)
- December 2020 (24)
- November 2020 (37)
- October 2020 (29)
- September 2020 (27)
- August 2020 (22)
- July 2020 (37)
- June 2020 (38)
- May 2020 (39)
- April 2020 (36)
- March 2020 (22)
- February 2020 (10)
- January 2020 (18)
- December 2019 (7)
- November 2019 (11)
- October 2019 (15)
- September 2019 (16)
- August 2019 (8)
- July 2019 (9)
- June 2019 (7)
- May 2019 (16)
- April 2019 (11)
- March 2019 (11)
- February 2019 (7)
- January 2019 (11)
- December 2018 (11)
- November 2018 (14)
- October 2018 (14)
- September 2018 (9)
- August 2018 (7)
- July 2018 (19)
- June 2018 (21)
- May 2018 (7)
- April 2018 (10)
- March 2018 (35)
- February 2018 (9)
- January 2018 (15)
- December 2017 (9)
- November 2017 (17)
- October 2017 (11)
- September 2017 (6)
- August 2017 (7)
- July 2017 (13)
- June 2017 (22)
- May 2017 (16)
- April 2017 (8)
- March 2017 (9)
- February 2017 (9)
- January 2017 (4)
- December 2016 (10)
- November 2016 (11)
- October 2016 (14)
- September 2016 (9)
- August 2016 (10)
- July 2016 (11)
- June 2016 (4)
- May 2016 (20)
- April 2016 (14)
- March 2016 (18)
- February 2016 (8)
- January 2016 (15)
- December 2015 (13)
- November 2015 (19)
- October 2015 (17)
- September 2015 (8)
- August 2015 (6)
- July 2015 (19)
- June 2015 (11)
- May 2015 (20)
- April 2015 (14)
- March 2015 (15)
- February 2015 (13)
- January 2015 (17)
- December 2014 (17)
- November 2014 (18)
- October 2014 (14)
- September 2014 (17)
- August 2014 (16)
- July 2014 (10)
- June 2014 (8)
- May 2014 (1)
- February 2014 (1)
- January 0001 (1)