Councillors have agreed to hike council tax by nearly five per cent at a meeting where one Labour member described his Tory opposition as the ‘Tameside Trump’.
On Tuesday night, a majority of members of the full council voted in favour of the budget for 2023/24 which includes a maximum council tax rise of 4.99 pc and £15.776m in cuts.
For a Band A property, the most common type in Tameside, it will see the annual bill rise by £54.96 a year from April – without Mayoral precepts or town council precepts on top.
The hike includes two per cent which is specifically to be used to fund adult social care in the borough.
Councillor Jacqueline North, first deputy in charge of finance, resources and transformation moved the budget, but took aim at government handling of the economy which she said was pushing many of the borough’s residents to ‘breaking point’.
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“No councillor in the land can ever be happy with the prospect of raising taxes on residents in the midst of a cost of living crisis,” she added.
“But if we wish to continue protecting and delivering the services that we are legally obliged to provide, including care for children and adults, waste collection and road maintenance, then we are truly left with no choice.
“The government is relying on councils to make this choice. Again the government is choosing to place the burden on the backs of Tameside’s residents.
“Local authorities across the country, including those in Greater Manchester, are grappling with the same impossible choices and reaching the same conclusions.”
She said they needed to demand greater long term investment from the government, and a move away from ‘endless rounds of beauty contests for pots of money’, and the implementation of the fairer funding review for local authorities.
“The alternative that we have lived with for over a decade of forcing councils to pass the financial burden onto local tax payers is as unjust as it is unsustainable going forward,” Coun North added.
“Despite the difficulties we face I am confident that the budget presented here will put us on a firm and sustainable footing moving forwards.”
The cabinet member who represents Longdendale ward added that cuts to front-line services would be ‘minimal’ with additional income raised reinvested vulnerable residents.
The biggest savings will come from the corporate directorate, followed by children’s services, adults services and the ‘place’ department.
As part of the savings, the council is to stop providing free caddy liners for compostable waste in brown bins. This would save £108k in the next financial year, and £22k the year after.
The cost of running street lights will also be cut by £108k in the coming year by reducing their brightness, resulting in less energy consumption.
The budget also included plans to pay all care workers the ‘real living wage’ of £10.90 an hour, at a minimum from April.
The Conservative opposition group had put forward an amendment to the budget which proposed alternative measures – including reducing the council tax hike to 2.99 per cent, and cutting funding for ‘nanny state’ public health projects.
Coun Liam Billington, who represents Stalybridge South, told the meeting: “Another year, and another tax rise with no progress in improving the lives of our residents – it truly feels like we’ve been stuck in Groundhog Day for the past 45 years that Labour have run this council.”
He added: “Another area that the Conservative group would seek to address in public health – it simply isn’t working.
“Now that Covid is out of the public’s mind they have reverted back to form with the finger-wagging, telling people what they can eat, drink and do in the privacy of their bedroom.
“People don’t want to be lectured into what they can do and if their advice was so good, councillors would be following suit and we’d all look like Twiggy.”
Coun Billington said the public health department should be scrapped, with the budget re-purposed into ‘community safety’ to tackle issues such as anti-social behaviour.
However Labour member Coun Oliver Ryan compared the policies the Tory councillor had proposed those of former US President Donald Trump.
“It’s unfortunate that that’s what he’s come to define himself as, the Tameside Trump as we say,” he said.
“No smoking cessation, no educational facilities, no public health matters about obesity.
“I’m all for having fun but I think there is a level at which public health becomes important in Tameside and it’s for us as a council to promote the healthiness of our residents, partly because it saves the authority and the health service money in the long-term.”
The Conservative amendment was not supported by councillors. The budget was then passed with Labour members voting in favour, and opposition members voting against.
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