Council tax payers in Bolton are set to see their overall bill rise by more than four per cent if a proposed budget is accepted next week. Bolton Council has published its draft budget for 2023/24 which also includes £4.2M of cuts to council services.
Bolton Council’s element of the council tax bill is set to rise by 3.99 per cent with two per cent of that ring-fenced to pay for adult social care. If agreed at the council’s budget meeting on Wednesday, February 15, the Bolton Council element of the tax for a typical Band D property will mean a rise of £55 from £1,622 to £1,687.
The overall bill for council tax payers is set to be higher once the Greater Manchester Mayor’s precept is added. The general precept (including fire service) is rising by 4.86 percent while there will be a 6.57 per cent increase for the mayoral police and crime commissioner precept.
READ MORE: Bizarre CCTV shows struggling thieves stealing bear and chimp ornaments from garden centre
That means the final bill for Band D home for most Bolton council taxpayers will be £2,039 for the year starting in April. Bill payers in Horwich, Westhoughton and Blackrod will also pay a a small amount more by way of a parish precept. A budget report to Bolton’s Conservative cabinet members this week set out the details of the budget proposal. It stated that the council will use £10m of its reserves to balance the budget.
In addition, to achieve a balanced budget the council proposed savings targets of £5.2m. They were able to reduce that figure after an agreement with NHS partners who pledged to make a contribution of £937,000 towards health and social care activities for 2023/24.
The remaining £4.2M shortfall would be funded by budget cuts of £1.6M from adults and housing, £1M from children’s services, £900,000 from the place directorate and £800,000 from the corporate functions of the council.
In the budget report, Tony Glennon, Bolton’s borough treasurer, said: “There are number of pressures outlined below which impact on the current financial year and 2023/24
“Since the 2022/23 budget was set, the UK inflation rate increase beyond 10 per cent for the first time in many years.
“It should be noted that, although the rate of inflation is forecast to fall during 2023/24, this is does not necessarily mean that prices will also reduce, merely that the size of price increases will be smaller than seen in 2022/23.
“Social care pressures continue to have a major effect on the council’s budget with a continuing upward trend of increases in the volume in demand for older people’s care packages in the community especially home care and discharges from hospital
and the increasing cost of external provision in children’s social care.”
Mr Glennon added that a major budget pressure came from the Local Government Pay Award – which gave council workers a rise of naround six per cent. He said the pay award assumption built into the original 2022/23 budget was two per cent, meaning the council were hot with additional in-year costs of £5.2m.
The final budget will be debated by the full council next week and is subject to changes and amendments until agreed at that meeting.
Read more of today's top stories here
READ NEXT:
- Lap dancing club is allowed to stay open despite claims it makes Manchester look 'seedy'
- Disgusting thug boasted of being a 'wife beater' as he repeatedly strangled girlfriend
- 'I was branded an attention seeker by my GP - I actually had a deadly condition'
- Romantic beauty spots in Greater Manchester to visit this Valentine’s Day
- Boy, 14, who died during police chase was driving car that had been stolen in armed robbery, inquest hear
