SIC faces ‘interesting financial discussions’ next year, councillors told

Council chamber.

Councillors will face an “interesting financial discussion” next year, a development meeting was told.

This comes as the SIC development committee met for budget setting today (Wednesday) ahead of the full council next week.

Finance executive manager Paul Fraser made the statement in response to a question from newly-appointed councillor Andrew Hall, who asked whether a draw on the reserves was “affordable,” as it had been mentioned in the agenda papers.

Mr Fraser said: “There’s an interesting financial discussion coming down the line, I think.”

The North Mainland councillor had noted the final point in the budget proposals for the housing accounts said reserve usage for this year “is affordable, although cannot be considered sustainable in the longer term…”.

“The 2024/25 draw, is currently projected to be £4.541m and is only known and applied against the reserve at year-end on an actuals basis,” the papers said. But there would need to be a draw of £7.89 million in the coming year to support the housing accounts.

This was “softening” councillors about the discussion likely to come at next year’s budget setting meetings, Mr Fraser said.

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