Council tax-payers in Northumberland facing 3.75% hike from April next year

Ratepayers are facing a 3.75% council-tax hike from April in Northumberland.
Council leader Glen Sanderson and Cllr Nick Oliver, the cabinet member for corporate services.Council leader Glen Sanderson and Cllr Nick Oliver, the cabinet member for corporate services.
Council leader Glen Sanderson and Cllr Nick Oliver, the cabinet member for corporate services.

As previously reported, savings of £8.3million have been identified for next year – with heftier cuts earmarked for the following two years – but there have been some amendments now that the budget- setting process is in full swing.

The Government has confirmed that the referendum threshold for increases in council tax will remain at 2% next year, while authorities will also be able to charge an adult social care precept of up to 3%.

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Northumberland ratepayers will therefore face a 2% general rise (1.99%), but the care precept will be split over two years ‘to try to soften the impact’, so the overall bill will increase by 3.75% next year and 3.25% in 2022-23.

The Conservative administration at County Hall has also been buoyed by what’s been set out in the recent Spending Review.

The details of the settlement has not been set out, but the Government has said that core spending power for local authorities is estimated to increase by 4.5% in cash terms in 2021-22, alongside additional Covid funding, including for social care.

Cllr Nick Oliver, the cabinet member for corporate services, said: “If it all comes through as we expect, then it’s a good settlement and better than we expected in our planning for the budget.

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“That said, we are still keen to find efficiencies. We are not rowing back from the savings plans we had, but we won’t need to use reserves as planned.”

He said that the savings were based on a ‘proportionate approach’ and budgets in areas of pressure had actually been increased to ‘protect the most vulnerable’.

Cllr Oliver also claimed that the aim was to get to a position where council-tax hikes could be avoided in future years – although, as with so much else, plenty relies on the outcome of the May 2021 elections.

Council leader Glen Sanderson added: “This has been an exceptionally difficult year for all us, our families and our businesses, and in a sense, the council is a business in that it relies on income.

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“We have had a tough year in terms of much less money coming in in certain areas and much more expenditure in others. We had to get the message across to the Government, because we don’t want to have to cut front-line services.”

Despite this context, Cllr Oliver said that ‘we remain very, very ambitious’ in terms of the capital spending plan, which remains to be finalised, with investment ‘in all of our key towns’.

However, he did concede that many of the major town-centre regeneration projects are works in progress – for example in Ashington, Bedlington, Blyth and Hexham – rather than new schemes, although there’s no denying that the likes of these and the potential development of the Northumberland Line would be a major boost for the areas in question.

Cllr Sanderson did mention that the council is looking to set up town deals through the Borderlands scheme in smaller communities such as Rothbury and Bellingham, while also highlighting the second tranche of the £15million for repairs to rural roads and pavements, £5million for climate-change work and a ‘significant amount of money’ to improve public toilets.

While investment is welcome and all but the most churlish would accept that this has been an exceptional year, it remains the case that budget cuts coupled with council-tax rises – often above inflation and certainly above average wage increases – has been the norm now for 10 years.

Challenged on this, Cllr Oliver reiterated a point made in previous years that council spending has remained static or even risen slightly over that period, even if Government grants have decreased, but increasing demand means that the authority has to deliver services more efficiently.

He continued: “We are determined as an administration to keep council-tax rises to a minimum. We’re expecting our rises to be smaller than most.

“We need to be building our economy to bring in more money through the likes of business rates. We need to focus on things that in the long-term are going to generate plenty of income for the council.

“We also need to reduce demand for services and one way to do that is to attract good jobs; the more people in good jobs, the less demand there is for adult social, children’s services and things like council tax support.”

Cllr Sanderson said that the goal was not to ‘cut things for the sake of it’ and that listening to the public about what’s important to them is key to this process.

“Are the everyday services you get of the quality you want?” he added. “I would think most people would say that they are. I would love to have £20million more from the Government, but we know we have to be efficient.”

The budget consultation runs until Thursday, January 21, and people can go to haveyoursay.northumberland.gov.uk to give their views on a wide range of issues.

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The budget and spending plans will be finalised before seeking approval from the full council at its meeting in February 2021.

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