Royal Borough Council tax reduction

Royal Borough set to freeze council tax

For the seventh consecutive year Band D council tax in the Royal Borough looks set not to increase as the proposal for this year is to freeze it at 2015/16 levels (£906.95).

The budget proposal includes:

  • an additional £240k on safeguarding children
  • an additional £300k on transporting special needs children to school.

 Efficiency savings of more than £5.7m have been identified for 2015/16 and include:

  • improved procurement £1.7m (waste, insurance, printing, building cleaning, legal, leisure centres, grounds maintenance)
  • energy efficiency £475k
  • staff restructures £1.36m (including Operations Directorate £554k, senior management £460k)
  •  More good news for residents includes:
  • £2.5m on expansion of popular schools
  • £1.6m on highway resurfacing
  • £3.7m for street lighting – LED upgrade
  • £3m for Maidenhead Waterways
  • £2.9m for Broadway Opportunity Area
  • £285k for Lower Thames Flood Relief design
  • £500k for Maidenhead Station interchange design
  • £365k for Participatory Budgets.

Over the last six years council tax in the Royal Borough has reduced while many other councils have increased it. This represents a reduction in council tax of 13.1 percent over the six years for Royal Borough residents and a reduction of 30 percent in real terms, while significant investments have been made in key areas.

Over a seven-year period this means borough residents have benefited from a council tax reduction of 12.56 percent in nominal terms or 31.44 percent real term reduction.

Cllr Simon Dudley, cabinet member for finance, said: “We are committed to putting residents first and this budget was created to ensure residents continue to be at the heart of everything we do.

“We are building our local economy over the next few years to achieve autonomy from central government funding, investing in services and protecting the most vulnerable in our community.

“This budget represents a real term saving for residents while allowing us to continue to invest in the services we offer.”

Cllr David Burbage, leader of the council, said: “Through careful budgeting we are able to continue to invest in our schools, roads and the regeneration of Maidenhead town centre while also retaining services we know our residents value, including weekly bin collections.

“These proposals will enable us to deliver against the pledges we made in May last year to local people, and we’re committed to doing what we said we would do, providing high quality services for the lowest amount of money.”

If the budget is approved the council will also be introducing an Adult Social Care Precept of £18 pa on a band D property. The precept was introduced earlier by the Government this year to allow councils to raise a ring-fenced amount to help cover the rising cost of caring for an ageing population.

Partly as a result of raising the precept the Royal Borough will be able to spend an additional £3.5m on adult social care, contributing towards a total predicted spend of £46.6m.

Cllr David Coppinger, cabinet member for adult services and health, said: “It is very important that we take care of our most vulnerable residents and in the Royal Borough we have a high percentage of elderly people, many of who will require some level of care and support during their final years.

“By raising this precept we will be able to deliver even better levels of care to those who need it the most while ensuring that funding is available to pay for other vital services.”

Overview and scrutiny panels will be reviewing their respective budgets over the next few weeks before the proposals are discussed by cabinet on Thursday 11 February. The final budget decision will be made by the council on Tuesday 23 February at the Town Hall, Maidenhead, starting at 7.30pm.