Council tax to go up by 5% as the latest cuts bite
AXE EXPECTED TO FALL MOST HEAVILY ON CITY’S SOCIAL SERVICES
COUNCIL tax bills will go up by almost 5% in Newcastle next year, with civic centre bosses still set to slash £40m from their budgets by 2023.
Newcastle City Council has unveiled another round of swingeing cuts – with social care services again bearing the brunt.
Adult social care services in the city, which support the elderly, disabled, people with mental health conditions and many more, will see their funding slashed by £13.2m in the next two years.
Children’s services face cuts of £6.4m, parking and bin collection charges are among a series of local authority fees that will be increased, and 15 jobs will be lost.
The council is proposing a council tax rise of 4.95%, including a 3% precept for adult social care, according to draft proposals published yesterday.
That rise, which is just short of the maximum 5% permitted by the Government next year without councils needing to hold a referendum on it, will equate to annual increases of between £56 and £169 depending on your home’s council tax band.
Some adults who receive care services from the council could also face new charges of up to £400 per week to pay for their support from April 2021.
The council says it also plans to increase charges for parking, pest control, bulky and garden waste collections and the digital streaming of funeral services.
The city’s libraries are also set to come under review – although council documents do not state any plans to close any sites, saying the authority is committed to “maintaining a citywide library network and preserving the City Library”.
The devastating impact of Covid-19 has cost the Labour-run council £60m through a combination of the unexpected costs of responding to the pandemic, an inability to make preplanned budget savings and loss of income from things like parking charges and business rates.
Civic centre finance chiefs have already had to make £32m of emergency budget cuts this year. They imposed a recruitment freeze and ceased all “non-essential” spending on council property in September, with only £28.8m of its losses being covered by the Government.
Council leader Nick Forbes slammed the Government for backtracking on a promise to do “whatever it takes” to support cash-strapped local councils through the
Covid crisis and said that “working people will have to carry the can for its incompetence, and the billions of pounds of waste and mismanagement” it had “presided over”.
Coun Forbes added:
“Newcastle has lost £305m since 2010 or £2,270 per household, and coronavirus has cost councils across the country more than £11bn this year alone.
“The Government has so far refunded less than half of that.
“They have done nothing to fundamentally change the fact that councils will be forced to make severe cuts in 2021 to balance their books.
“There is yet again an assumption from the Government that councils will increase council tax and make full use of the adult social care precept.
“We are faced with the difficult choice to increase council tax and use the 3% adult social care precept increase to help towards the rising cost of caring for older people and some of the most vulnerable in Newcastle.
“Nevertheless, we remain confident that we can improve services, facilities and the environment.
“Our proposals maintain commitments to upgrade play parks and push forward with our ambitious climate change initiatives.
“Our vision for a net-zero city by 2030 is the foundation for our economic vision to Build Forward Better – doing our best to both protect current jobs and create new ones at pace.”
The council says it will also need to use one-off temporary funding, including reserves, to balance its budget. Residents can have a say on the budget proposals until January 17 at lets talknewcastle.co.uk, with final plans due to be confirmed next March.