BCP leader: Council tax rises "very likely"
The council is looking at the budget for 2026/27 which will decided up on in February
The leader of BCP Council says it is “very likely” that council tax will increase again this year.
During a live online question and answer session on November 4, BCP Council leader Millie Earl and cabinet member for health and wellbeing, Councillor David Brown, answered residents questions on repair works, SEND funding and council tax.
The council is currently looking at the budget for 2026/27 which will be taken through council in February.
Considerations for the budget include what the authority needs to save money on, where additional funds can be raised and threats to local government budgets.
Councils have statutory services that they legally have to deliver such as social care, children services, highway maintenance and waste collection.
There are also non-statutory services that councils don’t legally need to provide but want to such as community engagement events and early help to prevent children going into social care.
During the live stream, Cllr Earl said: “We are very likely to increase our council tax this year like we did last year and the year before that.
“Last year the rise in employers’ national insurance hit our budget and actually increased a multi million pound pressure that we then had to close through making savings and raising the cost of services.
“There is a lot that could be moving around over the next few months. The budget process is something that we do very transparently, people are welcome to get involved in it and contact their councillors as well about what services they might value.
“But with rising costs, higher energy, things like inflation and the rise in demand in services it does mean that all councils across the country are under a huge amount of financial pressure.
“This is something that all councils wrestle with whether to raise council tax or not. The reality is there isn’t really a choice anymore. Government give us an amount we can raise it by and it is capped at 4.99 percent which includes 2 percent specifically for adult social care, and government expect us to raise it by the maximum.
“The concern is if we don’t raise council tax the only other option is to cut those services all together, so cutting not just the non-statutory services but potentially also the statutory services and the problem with that is if we did want to cut some of our statutory obligations government would intervene and they would come and control the council for us and make those decisions for us.
“It is a concerning time for residents, we see ourselves all paying more whilst receiving a lot less. As a council it think it is really important we continue to meet out statutory obligations so as to not automatically lose those additional services, or go to government, I don’t want to be in the position to go to government and ask for a 15 per cent rise in council tax, I don’t think that is right and we will do what we need to do to make sure services are protected in the budget.”