Executive recommends budget
Wednesday, 9 February 2022
Our Executive is recommending a budget for 2022/23 which will meet the growing demand for services to protect the most vulnerable residents.
In the recent Budget 2022 consultation, residents were asked for feedback on proposals to investment, saving money and increasing Council Tax.
After carefully considering the feedback from the budget consultation, the Executive agreed to the recommendations:
- spending £468 million on its services and operations
- investing £240 million on roads, care homes, leisure provision, other infrastructure projects and schools (including around £9 million on specialist school places for SEND)
- saving £12 million by working smarter, being more efficient and reducing our costs
We need to make specific investments to meet pressures in providing care for more older people and adults with disabilities, providing more support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and children who need our protection.
The demand for our services is such that our Executive also recommended increasing Council Tax.
The Executive recommended an overall increase of Council Tax of 1.95%. 1% of the increase is the Adult Social Care precept, charged to residents through their Council Tax, to enable us to continue providing quality care for the elderly and other disabled or vulnerable adults. 0.95% of the increase will be used to support our other services.
Councillor David Shelvey, our Executive Member for Corporate Resources said:
We are acutely aware of the other increasing costs of living that our residents will be paying, and that this past year has been hard for many households. It’s never easy making the decision to increase Council Tax, which is why we have kept the rise as low as possible without it negatively impacting on our services.
The final budget will be considered at the full Council meeting on 24 February 2022.