We are required by law to set a
‘balanced budget’; in other words for our income to cover our expenditure. We
continue, like all councils with similar responsibilities, to have enormous
financial pressures from demand and costs in Adult Social Care, Childrens’
Services, Home to School Transport for vulnerable children and providing
Temporary Accommodation for residents who are homeless. These services alone
account for about 71% of our expenditure. There was some welcome news at the eleventh
hour when the government announced recently that a bit more funding would be
available to councils for social care for the next year.
In all honesty, that extra money hasn’t
made much difference to the overall landscape, and we have, as required, allocated
this to our adult social care contingency fund, due to the level of both spend and
risk in this service.
More money for roads
Importantly, in recognition of the
impact of the recent terrible wet weather on the local road network (it is
apparently the wettest February for 248 years!), we voted during the meeting to
accept an amendment put forward by two backbench councillors, Gareth Williams and
Diana Blamires, to make an extra £5 million available to help fund badly needed
repairs. We also agreed that this funding should be deployed as quickly as
possible. It means that in total, we’ve now committed £110 million to road
repairs and improvements over the next four years. It is important for me to
stress that although we have some 30 repair teams out working now, permanent
repairs are very difficult in wet weather. The repair material will not stick
when the roads are wet. As a result, most repairs are temporary ones to make
the road safe. These temporary repairs will not last very long. Permanent
repairs will be scheduled for when the weather is warmer and drier.
Savings and increased income
The first priority for funding the 1,300 important and legally required
front line services that residents rely upon, is to try to make additional
savings and increase our income. Over the past four years we have saved over
£75 million from our budget. In the next four years we plan to save an additional
£95.3 million. I want to be frank that this will be very difficult and involve
taking some really tough decisions, such as allocating less money to our Community
Boards and some local organisations and voluntary groups. We will also have to increase costs for many services
we provide, such as support and car parking.
Council Tax
With some 80% of our income coming from council tax, councillors have
agreed to raise the base rate of council tax by 2.99%, with a further 2%
increase in the adult social care precept. This means an overall rise of 4.99%
in council tax bills, or an extra £1.69 per week for the average Band D
household.
In addition, the council has also agreed to additional council tax
charges on homes that have been empty for more than twelve months. This should also
help bring these back into use for people who desperately need homes.
While savings across the board are still being found to balance the
books, this additional income has allowed the council to reverse a small number
of previously planned savings
measures. For example, we will not now need to shorten opening hours at our
Household Recycling Centres and the council can continue the full gully
cleansing and litter picking programme and reinstate a round of weed spraying.
Help is available
I am aware this paints a challenging picture for households already
struggling with bills and I want to urge you that, if you are worried about
meeting the cost of your council tax bill, please do reach out and
contact our team in the first instance so we can discuss your options. Please do also
make note of the information and advice in our dedicated ‘cost of living’
web pages if you need to.
Overall, this has been an immensely
difficult budget to set - the hardest in all my time in local government. I must however underline
that we remain a prudently run council and we are not in the situation that
unfortunately, an increasing number of other councils are facing. A growing
number of local authorities are becoming effectively bankrupt with some cutting
services and putting up bills by as much as 10% this year. We have done
everything we can to keep our rise to a minimum and I’m pleased we can produce
a balanced budget for the next three years. We have also been able to commit
the following spend to the areas residents have told us they want to see
prioritised:
- £110 million on roads with a further £8.4 million on footways
- £26.1 million on services to support housing and homelessness, including affordable housing action plans and disabled facilities grants
- £14.7 million on climate change and flood management
- £37.6 million on town centre regeneration and economic growth
This budget has been agreed following rigorous cross political party scrutiny.
The financial plans for each portfolio area were looked at in detail during a
series of meetings last month.
Key for me too is that we continue to look to the future here in
Buckinghamshire. Now we have set our budget, while times are undoubtedly tough,
we are putting forward long-term solutions to reduce costs including:
- investing in additional children’s homes to reduce the heavy cost burden of external placements
- making savings in Adult Social Care through providing help for some residents, where it fits their need, to live more independently
- rationalising the council’s office space, such as closing the King George V site in Amersham
- investing in more housing and temporary accommodation units to bring down the spend on costly nightly-paid accommodation
We are also focussed on plans for growth and regeneration and a brighter
future overall here in Buckinghamshire, pushing forward key projects and
programmes such as our exciting regeneration plans, ambitious Climate Change and
Air Quality strategy and ‘Opportunity Bucks’ – our local
answer to ‘levelling up’.
While I wish we could hope for less turbulence overall this year, I
suspect there are more ups and downs to come in the immediate future. However,
I remain 100% committed to continuing to deliver for our residents, spending
your money in the wisest and most efficient way that we can, to secure a
brighter, long-term future for us all.
You can see the full detail of the agreed budget on
our website here.
Please keep safe in this cold, wet weather.
Buckinghamshire Council
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