Council Budgets & Council Tax – So What is it Spent on?
A question often asked of councillors is what is Council Tax actually spent on, a fair question which deserves a fair answer!
Just taking anannual net revenue budget of £163m, 63% is spent on Education and Social Care, areas where we are legally obliged to provide services. On top of that, we have to pay £13.7m for our waste to be dealt with and a further £2.2m for weekly waste collection service.
Something to bear in mind is that a revenue budget relates to the day to day expenditure of running the Council (£163m above) and is funded by council tax, fees & charges, revenue grants and business rates. Capital budgets is money spent on creating or improving long term assets. For example building or improving a library or sports centre. It is not the day to day running and is usually funded through borrowing or capital grants
A simple way to look at how your council tax is spent is to look at an average Council Tax bill (Band D property) which works out at £29.70 per week (£1,544 per year). If that were broken down over the services it funds, it would look like this:
£9.39 Social Care
£6.07 Education
£5.48 Central & Corporate Administration
£2.47 Waste Disposal Levy
£2.12 Culture & Leisure
£1.79 Roads, pavements, car parking
£1.28 Rubbish Collection & Street Sweeping
£0.53 Planning & Development
£0.46 Environmental Health
£0.11 Housing Advice
£29.70 Total
This is a very high level view, but below is a short powerpoint presentation I have put together which aims to set out the budget and council tax in an easy to follow format.
Havering-Council-Budget-Council 2017 feb
Always happy to answer any queries, questions or suggestions on this.
cllrclarencebarrett@yahoo.co.uk
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