Telford & Wrekin Council proposes 2.5% increase in council tax

The proposal follows the biggest ever public response to the Council’s budget proposals in which it received nearly 2,300 responses on what it should do with council tax, together with more than 1,000 suggestions on ways that it can save money.

In the consultation, almost two in three respondents said the Council should increase council tax (37 per cent favoured a 2.5 per cent increase and 26 per cent a 3.5 per cent increase), while 37 per cent wanted it to accept a Government offer of a one year grant to freeze council tax.

Even among the people who favoured the one-off grant to freeze council tax, significant numbers did not want to see the proposed cuts to services

On top of a funding gap of £40m that the Council must close by 2014, accepting the Government grant and freezing council tax would leave Telford & Wrekin Council facing a financial blackhole and needing to find an extra £1.4m each year through even higher council tax or deeper service cuts.

The Council’s budget proposes nearly £9m in cuts to services to help it meet the savings that it must find, while protecting as far as possible front line services through further cuts to senior management, better procurement and more efficient ways of working.

Next year, £8.2m in savings will come from staff budgets, rising to a total of £17m by 2014.

The council tax increase, if backed, is likely to see the Council have the third lowest council tax in the Midlands, while it still faces significant pressures on its budget due to increasing demand for its services. Examples of this demand include growing numbers of older people and looked after children, inflation and reduced income because of the recession.

Councillor Bill McClements, cabinet member for Resources and Service Delivery, said: “We recognise that household budgets are under growing pressure but the very short term gain that a one-off council tax freeze sweetener would give would result in long-term pain and plunge us into a financial blackhole.

“Accepting it would leave us needing to find an extra £1.4m a year on top of the £40m funding shortfall we must already find by 2014, due to unprecedented cuts in government grant.

“Like a growing number of councils across England of all political colours, we are proposing an increase in council tax because we see the long term damage a tax freeze would cause and leave Council services facing further cuts to services in the future.

“However we propose to do so only after first asking local people’s views on the level of council tax they want and we have a duty to reflect these views.

“We have also made changes to our budget proposals to reflect the thousands of comments made on our original proposals in our consultation.”

The Council’s revised budget proposals will be considered by the Cabinet on February 23 and then go to Full Council for final approval on March 1.