Council tax in Tameside is to be hiked by nearly five per cent amid plans to cut more than £15m from the town hall budget.
The executive cabinet has agreed to recommend proposals to full council to raise council tax from April by the maximum available 4.99 pc. This includes two per cent which is specifically to be used to fund adult social care in the borough.
For a Band A property, the most common type in Tameside, it will see the local bill rise by £54.96 a year – without Mayoral precepts or town council precepts on top. And the local authority is also preparing to make £15.776m in cuts and savings from its budget in 2023/24.
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.
Councillor Jacqueline North, deputy member for finance, resources and transformation, said the proposed budget would allow them to protect core services and pay the real living wage to care workers.
“We’ve had to do this in the face of a really bleak economic outlook with inflation the highest we’ve seen in 40 years,” she added.
“As a council not only have we had these issues that have arisen in the last 12 months, we’ve also experienced a 24pc reduction in the real terms of our spending power since 2010-2011. And that equates to something like £688 per household.
“We know that the cost of living crisis is putting extra pressure on our childrens’ and on our adults social services. The government is really relying on council tax to do a lot of the heavy lifting.”
Coun North also told the meeting that an absence of the long-promised funding settlement for local authorities from the government meant that Tameside would not receive any extra support for its children’s services department in the coming year.
The budget report predicts that future savings must be made in future years, rising to £37.4m in 2027/28 if the financial arrangements for local authorities remain as they currently are.
“The council must continue to make efficiencies but cannot keep cutting at this scale over the longer-term. There is a need to continue to rescale underlying demand across high cost areas,” officers warn.
“This will require innovative and creative remodelling of services with the need to invest in transformation capacity and capability.”
Coun Jack Naylor, who chairs the audit panel, told councillors: “Where there are cuts it’s been thought through with a purpose and a logic.”
All councillors will vote on the budget proposals at a forthcoming meeting of the full council.
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