Council tax bills in Bury set for five per cent rise in April

Council tax payers in Bury face a five per cent increase in bills if budget proposals are passed this week. Bury Council meet on Wednesday to agree their budget for 2023/24 with the authority also needing to implement £14M of cuts including more than 30 job losses to balance the books.

Budget papers published ahead of the meeting say the basic element of council tax is set to rise by 2.99 per cent, the maximum allowed. On top of that there will be a further two per cent increase for the adult social care precept, ring fenced funding to help pay for services to the most vulnerable.

The Labour run council said the budget is brought forward in ‘an extremely difficult context’. They said the Covid pandemic has led to ‘increased costs, additional demand and reduced income’.

Other factors affecting their position were sharp increases in energy costs and ‘inflation at a 40 year feeding into higher costs of contracts, staff pay and utility bills’. They said national shortages of labour were also increasing workforce costs, particularly within services for children.

The report said the council was already facing a deficit of £4M at the end of the current financial year. The report set out the scale of cuts needed to balance the budget in 2023/24.

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It said: “The ongoing position is a gap of £31.395m, hence why savings programmes, efficiencies and additional income have been identified to close the full recurrent gap. “Savings proposals totalling £24.261m and additional council tax and business rates income of £7.134m have been brought forward to balance the budget.”

The council said and among the schemes to give savings