Have your say on county budget plan
RESIDENTS and businesses are being encouraged to comment on Leicestershire County Council’s latest four-year budget plan.
People can find out more and have their say by completing a short survey at www.leicestershire.gov.uk/budget
The proposals underline that rising demand for support and infrastructure is placing growing pressure on budgets.
With costs set to rise by £117m, the strategy sets out the need for £80m of savings. It also includes £16m of investment in tackling climate change, an extra £34m to support vulnerable people and £7m next year to top up road maintenance budgets.
A 3.99 per cent Council Tax increase - equating to just over £1 a week – is proposed for 2020/21.
The consultation runs until January 19.
The outcome of the priorities consultation which ran over the summer are available at https://bit.ly/34EQXK4
LEICESTERSHIRE County Council is set to increase council tax by almost four per cent and cut £80 million from services over the next four years, despite the leading Tory group saying austerity is coming to an end.
The increase of 3.99 per cent equates to an extra £1 a week per band D household and is the maximum the council is allowed to increase their part of the precept by.
Two per cent of the increase will be used to fund adult social care, while the other 1.99 per cent will go towards funding other “vital” services.
Children’s services has overtaken adult social care as the authority’s biggest cost pressure, with growth in the department’s budget expected to reach £20.9 million in 2020/21.
Adult social care costs are expected to increase by £9.2 million over the same period.
Deputy leader and cabinet member for finance, Councillor Byron Rhodes, said: “It’s partly due to the huge increase in the number of children we are now seeing with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The number of children with an education health and care plan is going up, and parents have rising expectations of what we should be doing to help their children.
“We are investing in providing SEND places at our schools and building our own facilities also. Those things will take time and in the meantime there is a pressure on our finances.
“Pressures are still there when it comes to looked-after children as well. At the moment we are relying too heavily on the private sector to provide those services – that costs us more money and isn’t always the best option for other reasons, too.
“We would prefer our lookedafter children to be in a family environment. We’ll continue our push to recruit foster families.”
The council says pressure is building as demand for support and infrastructure soars, driving its costs up by £117 million.
Budget plans for the next four years were outlined recently. They reveal that a 3.99 per cent increase would generate £12 million next year, which would be invested in “supporting vulnerable people”.
Coun Rhodes hopes this will be the last year the council is forced to increase council tax by so much.
Asked if austerity is now over, he said: “It’s getting there. Clearly, there is still a lot more tightness in our budgets than we would like, but things are improving.”
Despite his optimism, the report accompanying the plans states that achieving savings “will require focus, discipline and innovation”.
Of the £80 million that needs to be cut, £23.8 million of savings has been identified.
Recruiting more in-house foster carers to reduce expensive placements; reducing adult social care costs by simplifying processes and speeding up support; reducing disposal costs by recycling and reusing more waste and generating more income from property investment are among the ways the authority hopes to save cash. The budget report also estimates 150 jobs will go as a result of cuts, but Coun Rhodes said that “in reality” the number of redundancies would be less than the estimate because of natural wastage and people moving between
departments.
Fairer funding also gets a big mention in the report, with the authority’s own analysis estimating that it would receive £303 million more a year if it was funded at the same level as the London borough of Camden.
Coun Rhodes said: “This is something we have already briefed our new and returning MPs on and I think we have a strong voice.
“We are hopeful that we will see changes here and soon.”
If more funding were to be made available to the authority, Coun Rhodes said it would be invested in road improvements and hiring staff.
“Over the years one of the areas that has suffered as a result of austerity is highways,” he said.
“Parts of our road network are in major need of maintenance work.”
A range of one-off investments to support infrastructure for new homes features in the £600 million capital programme. This includes building the Melton relief road, creating 6,400 more school places – 5,900 mainstream and 500 SEND – expanding adult social care accommodation and rolling out high-speed broadband.
Councillor Rhodes said: “Rapidly spiralling demand is ramping up pressure on both our service and capital budgets. We can balance the books for now but despite saving £210 million since 2010, a significant gap is looming.
“Leicestershire is growing, requiring the biggest investment in the county’s infrastructure for a generation. That’s why prioritising resources and improving how we work remain essential.
“Future certainty, a cast-iron commitment to fair funding and a longer-term solution for local government finance, for social care in particular, are essential.”