Swindon Council tax rise of 4.99 per cent approved by cabinet
The increase is the maximum allowed by the government without a referendum.
A proposal that council tax payers in Swindon will be asked to pay 4.99 per cent more for the services they receive in the next financial year will be put to councillors at their next meeting.
And it would be very surprising if the Conservative administration, which has a 10 seat majority, wasn’t able to get that voted through.
The increase, which is the maximum allowed by the government without a specific referendum is in two parts: two per cent of the extra money raised must be spent on adult social care, while 2.99 per cent can be used for other day to day spending – highways, libraries, waste collection and services for children and the rest of the council’s activities.
It means a hike of £76.65 per year for a Band D household, deemed to be the “average” payer, bringing the money such a taxpayer pays just to Swindon Borough Council will come to £1612.80, with precepts for the police and fire services, and parish councils normally adding a few hundred extra.
The Conservative cabinet approved the increase put forward by the cabinet member for finance Keith Williams who said the development of the budget for next year had been extremely difficult. He said: “We have had to identify savings of £38m this year. Previously the biggest saving we have had to make in any one year was £21, so you can see how difficult this has been.”
Coun Williams added: “This increase is less than half the prevailing rate of inflation and it’s a fraction of the 12 per cent inflationary pressure we have on the budget. Every penny is needed.”
Council leader David Renard added that every top tier council in the country, such as Swindon, had decided to take the full 4.99 per cent increase.
One of the measures intended to save those million is to cut 100 jobs form the council’s payroll – with 50 of those posts involved already being vacant it means at least 50 people could be facing redundancy.
The cabinet member for organisational excellence Dale Heenan said: “It’s about 80 per cent of the council’s total budget which is spent on about one per cent of the town’s population. I think it might be helpful to do more to explain that.”
The budget and tax increase will be put to councillors at their meeting on Thursday February 16 starting at 7pm in the council chamber.
The £7.8m Swindon Borough Council spends from its everyday revenue budget to service £406m of long-term borrowing it has, costs more than the £5m or so that the authority’s proposed 4.99 per cent increase in council tax will bring it next year.
Having established that at the Conservative cabinet’s meeting, leader of the Labour opposition group said: “So if this administration had not run up such a huge debt, it could have not raised council tax.”
That drew a sharp response from members of the cabinet, particularly leader of the council David Renard.
He said: “Councillor Robbins knows full well that we borrowed to invest in the borough and there is plenty of vital infrastructure, including things like schools, that just wouldn’t be there if we hadn’t borrowed to do that.”
Another cabinet member Dale Heenan asked how much of the £406m was borrowing made under the last Labour government’s Private Finance Initiative, and how much was the council housing debt imposed on the council by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2012.
The cabinet member for finance Keith Williams, who said he’d have appreciated notice of these questions, said £43m of the debt was from PFI deals and the HRA debt had been £150m and was now £90m.