Councillors are due to vote on the budget next week including plans for a 4.99 per cent increase in council tax.
The proposed increase in Brighton and Hove is 2.99 per cent for general council tax and 2 per cent ring-fenced for adult social care.
If approved, an average band D council tax property would pay £2,338.06 a year in council tax from April, with £1,977.66 going to Brighton and Hove City Council.
The rest of the bill is made up of £252.91 for the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner and £107.49 for the East Sussex Fire Authority.
The proposed council tax charges for each band – excluding Rottingdean parish and three “enclosed areas” – are
A* – £1,298.93
A – £1,558.71
B – £1,818.49
C – £2,078.28
D – £2,338.06
E – £2,857.63
F – £3,377.19
G – £3,896.77
H – £4,676.12
Additional council tax charges are paid by residents of Rottingdean parish – and by those living in Hanover Crescent, Marine Square and Royal Crescent, or the enclosed areas, for the maintenance of gardens.
Papers released before the “budget council” meeting next Thursday (22 February) put total council spending at just over £1.1 billion including capital spending. This is slightly down on last year.
The gross budget for next year to deliver public services is £925 million, with £211 million allocated for capital investment.
The city receives £445 million in government grants, including £224 million in “dedicated schools grant”.
Included in the £445 million is £98 million for housing benefit and £122 million in other grants.
Fees and charges generate about £200 million, including £48 million in parking income, £76 million for the Housing Revenue Account, primarily from tenants’ rents, and £75 million in other charges.
Council tax is expected to generate £185 million towards the revenue budget for general spending.
The net budget – or the council spending that is directly financed from council tax, business rates and the government’s revenue support grant – is £246 million.
A breakdown of the budget is published on the council website.
The budget council meeting is due to start at 4.30pm next Thursday at Hove Town Hall. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Why are bhcc pressing on with VG3 when they know this is going to cost the local taxpayer £6 million?
How can this be justified?
Over to you to provide the answers…. Cllr Muten
Muten wants to leave a legacy of “l was the Councillor that ruined BRIGHTON and got rid of that horrendous roundabout that l hated”Just like Jason KitKat who ruined the Lewes Road. My question is does Cllr Muten even live in Brighton?
It’s not going to cost local tax payers.
The money has already come from the DfT for this scheme and if it’s not spent it has to go back.
Incorrect.
The local taxpayer is making up the shortfall – £6m and rising
Oh look BH Council to raise tax by the maximum allowed AGAIN…
But still nothing will change.
More money less service.
All against the background of a 40 percent real terms cut in council income from central government since your Tory friends took the reins of central government in 2010.
And yet you continue to blame to councillors who are put in this unenviable position by the inevitable maths of that. None so blind as will not see, eh?
And like labour did to Tory councils when they was in power.
Which Tory councils are you referring to ?
As are many councils – including Tory ones – all across the country!
The more we pay the less we get. Perhaps we council tax payers need to get together and start procuring our own direct rubbish, police and other services and forget about the council. They have no respect for other peoples money.
The total amount collected in council tax doesn’t cover the amount that looking after our elderly and vulnerable residents . I’m not sure who you think will pay for them
It’s not the whole picture though, Barry. We’ve been through this several times. Did you do the recommended reading you’ve been suggested several times by several different people?
£1 in every £5 spent comes from council tax – central government has cut £100million of funding to the city in the last decade. The council has to provide education, social care and statutory homelessness services with less and less money of course they have to increase council tax, parking charges and costs of transferring ownership of beach huts. If you don’t like it stop voting Tory!
If you are suggesting this Council is not responsible for their own spending decisions, there is no point in having the Council. it’s time to consider new and more direct models for the delivery of local services controlled by a taxpayer’s alliance. If the old system is falling apart and riven with waste and unaccountability and all it can do is blame central government, it has outlived its usefulness.
No council is responsible for the majority of its spending decisions.
Barry perhaps read the budget documents – available on the councils website – and you’ll see that much of the money from the government is earmarked for specific services and it can only be spent on those services e.g. schools and social care.
The beauty of that for the government is that they don’t get blamed for any failures due to lack of investment in those services !
Barry, once again, you REALLY need to learn how budgets work within councils.
Labour, Tory, Liberal,Green , Monster Looney Party, all the same…what is the point of Voting? Same result whoever governs. Just different parasites on the gravy train.
Because if you don’t vote, historically, extreme politics come into play.
Councillors get a basic 13k allowance for what is close to a full-time job, if done properly. So not much gravy. It is a lazy trope to say everyone is corrupt or ‘all the same’. If you don’t vote you shouldn’t complain. And if you want to experience proper corruption, go and check out one of the world’s many dictatorships.
I imagine there are a lot of people out there who are going to blame the council for increased pressure on their incomes. Unfortunately, most of this pressure comes from central government, with councils across the country being given less and less over the last ten years, combined with another recession, and there’s simply no choice but to make unpopular decisions like this, because the alternative is to go bankrupt, and if you read into how places like Croydon are once 114 notices have been issued, you’d understand why that needs to be avoided.
In the first half of the 2010s the coalition government imposed sharp cuts on local authorities: between 2009/10 and 2021/22, funding for local authorities in England fell by 10.2% in real terms.