The purpose of this Financial Strategy is to set out the issues that are considered when both the annual budget and the high level three year forecast is being drafted and updated.
By bringing together financial assumptions; standards of service delivery; demographic needs; and workforce planning issues into this document it is expected that the Council will be better able to consider overall management of its resources to meet its objectives.
Objective of the Strategy
The Council’s financial objective is for the careful and responsible use of resources, and the overall objective of this strategy is:
“to provide a framework and overall direction and parameters in order for the Council to structure and manage its finances to ensure that financial resources are used in a responsible and careful manner”.
This strategy achieves this by:
- Outlining principles for developing and setting the annual budget
- Integrating and acknowledging external forces into the budget process
- Integrating financial and business planning, reflecting priorities of the Corporate Strategy, anticipating pressures facing the Authority and ensuring improvement of services
- Identifying the main links with other processes, core considerations and financial themes to be considered
- Indicating projected levels of income, expenditure and capital investment over a rolling three year period
- Providing a single document to communicate the financial context, aims and objectives to stakeholders.