Taxpayers face new £10 ‘mayor charge’
COUNCIL tax payers across Greater Manchester are set to be hit by a new ‘mayoral charge’ of around £10 to fund Andy Burnham’s office and its functions, our sister paper the M.E.N. understands.
The annual precept will be separate to those for fire, police and council services and would be added on to council tax bills from April.
It would fund a range of functions carried out by the mayor, including the creation of a new transport strategy, the development of a Greater Manchester development masterplan – known as the ‘spatial framework’ – and a drive to improve struggling town centres across the conurbation.
It would also pay towards administration and office support costs for Mr Burnham himself.
No agreement has yet been reached on the exact sum to be charged, but one senior figure said it was expected to be around £10.
That is likely to raise between £3m and £4m annually, it is understood.
The government allows elected mayors to add their own charges to council tax bills in order to pay for certain direct costs related to their role.
Unlike with council, police and fire charges, there is no ceiling on the amount that can be charged, leaving individual mayors to come up with their own sum. It is understood an annual precept of between £25 and £30 was initially mooted by Mr Burnham’s office last year, but one senior combined authority figure said council leaders – whose support is required to agree the new precept – ‘balked’ at it.
“They just said ‘no chance’,” they added.
Sources within Mr Burnham’s office insisted the higher figure had never been ‘formally’ proposed, although it had been ‘very informally mooted’ in order to pay for changes to the bus network.
It later emerged that government rules meant the precept could not currently be used for that purpose.
Since then, further discussions have been held in a bid to arrive at a lower figure.
There is little disagreement among council leaders, according to one senior insider, that a precept is likely to be introduced.
“There’s a general acceptance a precept will be levied, it’s just the amount,” they said.
“I think it will be about a tenner, so there’s not a massive storm brewing internally, it’s just the finer points.”
The exact way the precept would be spent depends on the final figure and the amount it would raise as a result, so no detailed breakdown has currently been made available.
The mayor’s current budget includes just under £4m to draw up a new transport strategy, such as creating plans to dramatically ease congestion.
Around £340,000 is allocated to office and support functions for the mayor, while £670,000 will be needed to complete the delayed Greater Manchester Spatial Framework, according to a report tabled to the combined authority’s scrutiny committee.
An unspecified sum will also be required to roll out the mayor’s ‘town centre challenge’, which seeks to revive struggling town centres – including Stockport, Prestwich, Leigh and Stretford.
Final proposals for the precept, as well as the combined authority’s budget for 2018, are due to go before leaders on January 28, ahead of final approval next month.