Medium Term Corporate Plan (MTCP)

The Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) is now incorporated into the Medium Term Corporate Plan (MTCP).

The Council has a long established process of operating a medium term approach to its financial planning and in line with this it reviews the plan at least on an annual basis when it firms up the following year, by approving a detailed budget and Council Tax level for the year. In doing this, the Council also takes due consideration of future year demands on its resources and establishes its firm proposals for the coming year with due regard to prudent financial management in the medium term. The Council has a successful track record of managing its resources in this way.

The Council is facing its most significant financial challenge since becoming a Unitary authority Council in 1997 due to significant reductions in Government funding. It is estimated that the Council will lose 24.4% of its non-schools grant funding by 2014-15. The total value of reductions in annual net revenue spending from 2010 to 2015 is likely to exceed £22M.

Taking account of the above as well as the headroom needed over the life of the MTFP the Council’s General Fund balance at 1st April 2011 is projected to be £13.519M with a planned reduction to £7.184M by 31st March 2015. This is, however, dependant on achieving significant savings in the period to 31st March 2015.
 
The MTFP includes forecasts of the overall level of resources likely to be available to the Council over the next four years from:

• Formula Grant   
• Specific grants
• Council Tax
• Income from service users

‘One Darlington : Perfectly Placed’ is the  Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) for Darlington’s Local Strategic Partnership and it identifies the Council’s overall policy priorities which balance national and local priorities for Darlington. The Community Strategy has five themes and Priority actions:

• Theme 1 Prosperous Darlington 
• Theme 2 Aspiring Darlington
• Theme 3 Healthy Darlington
• Theme 4 Greener Darlington
• Theme 5 Safer Darlington

The plan marks an important transition towards new ways of working in response to the challenging impact of the economic recession on public sector finances. The Council’s new Business Model aims to transform the role of the Council, to one of leadership and co-ordination ensuring that high quality services continue to be provided and that quality of life for everybody in the borough continues to improve, whilst living within its means as an organization.

These new ways of working revolve around four key functions:

• Champion the interests of citizens and business, listening, understanding and acting on the needs and aspirations of everybody in the borough;
• Promote the borough, and secure the best possible outcomes for Darlington within the sub-region, region, nationally and in Europe;
• Ensure the provision of high quality services, acting to ensure that what is provided is right but being more flexible about how it is provided and by whom – the Council’s role as a direct service provider will reduce in favour of ordering and procuring services from the best possible provider.
• Supporting strong partnerships to set a vision and direction for the borough and for public services, steering provision across the public, private and voluntary sectors in response to our understanding of local needs and aspirations.

As well as describing what will be delivered through the four functions, the Business Model establishes three strategic strands pointing to how the Council will support delivery. These are:

• Continue to focus on securing efficiency in every aspect of business and activity through business reviews, and process re-engineering.
• Ensure that service and investment planning and prioritisation is directed at delivering the outcomes set by One Darlington: Perfectly Placed; our planning focus and methodology, coordinated with partners, needs to direct resources to where they will be most effective in addressing local issues and needs.
• Develop a more mixed economy in terms of the arrangements for the delivery of services, based upon whatever vehicle – Council, partnership, contractor – can best release savings and secure quality service delivery.

The Council has set a revenue budget of £84.485 million for 2011-12 which is summarised at departmental level below:-