Council tax bills look likely to go up by 3.99 per cent – or an average of £75 a year – in Brighton and Hove from April.
Just over half the increase – 2 per cent – is to go towards the rising cost of adult social care as Brighton and Hove City Council prepares to set its budget for 2020-21.
The council is receiving extra funding from the government for adult social care too – but £400,000 less than had been expected.
The extra money raised from the council tax should contribute £150 million towards an overall budget of more than £750 million.
Despite this, rising demand for services and cost pressures such as wage increases mean that the council is aiming to make savings of just over £9 million.
As a result about 50 jobs are expected to go, with some posts to be made redundant.
A report going before councillors on the Policy and Resources Committee this week said that most of the posts were already vacant or would become vacant through normal turnover.
Any new recruitment would have to have a “clear business case” and the focus would be on redeploying people when possible.
The £9 million savings target includes almost £1.5 million from the council’s community care budget for adults.
The council’s budget papers flag up a proposed “review of the funding source of transport arrangements for clients aged between 18 to 25 attending education provision”.
The proposal follows a money-saving shake up of home to school transport in the past year which – instead of cutting costs – is forecast to end the financial year more than £700,000 over budget.
Some of the £1.5 million savings are expected to come from the Move On project which has involved moving adults with learning difficulties away from high-cost placements.
The council also hopes to save about £250,000 on administering housing benefit as more people are switched to universal credit although the switch brings costs of its own.
The council’s spending plans include £100,000 extra for the Royal Pavilion Estates to help cover the cost of improvement works after the collapse of the main contractor.
And £2.4 million looks like being set aside for work on the Madeira Terraces as plans are drawn up to restore the first three arches at the western end.
The report to councillors said: “The government’s announcement of a one-year spending review leaves considerable uncertainty over local government funding beyond 2020-21 and therefore presents difficulties in planning for investment in longer-term priorities and commitments.
The Policy and Resources Committee is due to meet at 4pm on Thursday (13 February). The meeting, at Hove Town Hall, should be open to the public.
Absolute joke
The council has just spent £5 million on an office block near Brighton Station. Maybe they should have waited until after they had checked their financial commitments for the next tax year.
That’s capital not revenue. Maybe you should acquire some basic understanding of how public sector budgets work before you sneer?
Not sure what your point is. Capital or revenue it’s still £5 million pounds. I wasn’t sneering at public sector budgets. I’m aware that it’s very difficult to balance the books. They obviously had £5 million pounds of public money sloshing around somewhere and in the current climate it may have been better utilised for current issues that are short of cash rather than using it for long term investments, at this current time. Maybe my council tax wouldn’t need to increase so much if that £5 million pounds was better spent.
As part of the headcount reduction, perhaps get rid of the 8 temporary staff that will be used for weed removal and reinstate glyphosate spraying, and stop funding the other 8 union representatives…