Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
County braces for 4% council tax rise as KCC faces cuts
Kent residents face another year of inflation-breaking bills after the county council announced plans for a 4% increase in the council tax.
The Conservative-led administration says the hike is needed to help cushion the impact of yet another year of cuts totalling £75 million.
If approved, the Kent County Council bill for households in band C properties would rise by almost £40 from £1,007.60 to £1,047.84.
Council chiefs say they will use the option of increasing bills by an additional 2% to raise more money for social care – on top of a 1.99% hike.
Like many councils, KCC is facing rising demand for services – particularly those for vulnerable adults – at the same time as the government is giving it less money.
One pressure is the introduction of the National Living Wage, which KCC says will create problems for contractors by pushing up wage bills that would then be passed onto the authority.
KCC leader Paul Carter says the council has already identified £75 million of savings, but needs to find £108 million to bal- ance the books. The council tax increase would bring in £23.7 million of that shortfall.
The draft budget would mean between 300 and 400 more jobs will be lost, and of those, about 50 would be compulsory redundancies.
Cllr Carter said: “The government has placed an enormous challenge on us by imposing some of the biggest cuts compared to other parts of the public sector.
“With forward planning and facing the challenge early on, we are now in a better position than most.
“We totally understand that some transformational plans take many years to implement.
“We are forward-thinking, have made intelligent commissioning decisions and have the situation in hand.” The proposed budget includes:
Saving £13.3 million in adult care
Saving £2 million from hometo-school transport
Raising £1.9 million from selling school support packages
Saving £5.2 million by converting streetlights to LED bulbs
The financial challenges facing KCC look set to continue for at least another two years and will require “further significant savings”, according to cabinet member for finance Cllr John Simmonds.
Canterbury Lib Dem campaigner Mike Sole said: “We can’t complain about cuts to services, potholes, lack of education support services etc and also complain about rises in council tax.
“Too many services are run on a shoestring. While we do need safeguards to ensure that money isn’t wasted and that those on low incomes are not adversely affected, sometimes raising taxes to improve or maintain services is the right thing to do.
“Whether that burden should fall on local taxpayers and be collected through the crude mechanism of council tax or fall on national government and be funded through corporate and income taxes is the larger question.”
There will be a six-week consultation on the draft budget. For full details see www.kent.gov. uk/budget