We make life safer Draft Budget 2013/14 Consultation Business Breakfast Briefing 7 February 2013 John Beckerleg, Director of Corporate Services Rob Carr, Treasurer

We make life safer Introduction Our Service priorities next year Our budget and future investment plans Council tax decision We welcome your views on our plans and our budget Please contact: John Beckerleg, Director of Corporate Services Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service HQ, Leigh Road, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO50 9SJ Tel: ext 2003 Mob: /

We make life safer Service priorities – ‘Making life safer’ Improving the way we respond to and support incidents Refocusing our efforts to reduce accidental fires in the home Increasing community safety with sprinklers Improving economic sustainability through effective business support Improving how our communities are able to respond to and support incidents (community resilience) Renewing our role in Road Safety and creating safer road users in Hampshire

We make life safer Service priorities – ‘Making the Service stronger’ Our people Communications and engagement Working with partners Leadership Information and technology Assets and money

We make life safer Our income comes from…… Council taxGovernment grant 2013/ % 53% 44% Over recent years the share of our budget met from the council tax has grown

We make life safer Confirmation of CSR* 1…to date This is slightly better than planned, but still requires us to make significant reductions We are continuing to plan for 7% reduction in 2015/16 and 2016/17 *Government plan – Comprehensive Spending Review – 2011/2 to 2014/15 We were planning for our grant to go down by /142014/ %... but it will actually go down by /142014/ %-8.0%

We make life safer Service savings programme To meet the reductions in income we have a well established programme of efficiencies and other savings including: More efficient crewing models at station (reducing the number of frontline firefighters by 40) Systematic review of other staffing levels (reducing staffing levels by 15%) Efficiency programmes through increased partnership working, changing mobilising systems, improved procurement, etc. Together these plans will reduce spending by over £6m by 2014/15.

We make life safer Next year’s budget – 2013/14 Next year we are planning to spend about £67m. This will be paid for from two sources: Government grants (£32m) and council tax (£35m). 80% of our costs relate to staffing – firefighters and support staff. We operate from 51 stations across Hampshire; 13 are staffed full time, the remaining 38 are run using retained firefighters. Last year we responded to 14,741 incidents. Of these 5,765 were fires and 2,870 were special service calls. The balance, 6,106 were false alarms of which some 35% were from automatic fire detectors in non-domestic premises. In addition we responded to 9,138 calls to provide emergency medical assistance.

We make life safer Capital programme…. (buying new vehicles, buildings etc.) Current capital spending = £3.5m per annum but Government funding = £1.4m per annum. We will have to find the balance from our own reserves Early action on the savings programme has increased reserves for capital Our reserves will help us until at least 2017/18

We make life safer Capital programme…. Current programme continues to support improvement £’000 SpendingIncome

We make life safer What level of council tax should we set? On 14 February 2013, the Authority will need to set the Council Tax for next year. The Government has announced a further Council Tax freeze grant if the Authority does not increase the Council Tax next year. It therefore has at least two options: Option 1 - Freeze council tax again in 2013/14 and receive a Government grant of £0.4m in 2013/14 and 2014/15 Option 2 - Increase council tax in 2013/14 by 2% (worth about £0.8m per year) and forego the freeze grant. The next two slides show how that affects our income and spending

We make life safer A graph showing the expected income and expenditure with a 0% Council Tax increase from 13/14 and a 2% in 14/15 & 15/16 (Alternative A) £4.4m

We make life safer A graph showing the expected income and expenditure with a 1.9% Council Tax increase from 13/14 onwards and 2% in 14/15 & 15/16 (Alternative B). £3.7m

We make life safer Questions One of the issues facing the Authority is how to bridge the shortfall between income and expenditure. We are beginning to make plans to identify savings or to find other sources of income, possibly through establishing a commercial arm able to sell services for a profit. We would welcome views / suggestions on the measures we might implement. On 14 February 2013, the Authority will need to set the Council Tax for next year. The Government has announced a further Council Tax freeze grant if the Authority does not increase the Council Tax next year. It therefore has at least two options: Freeze council tax again in 2013/14 and receive a Government grant of £0.4m in 2013/14 and 2014/15 Increase council tax in 2013/14 by 2% (worth about £0.8m per year) and forego the freeze grant. The Authority is being recommended to take option 1. We would welcome your views on this approach