Burnley Council executive agrees recommendations on 2024/25 budget including increase in council tax

The national government has determined how far district councils such as Burnley can increase the level of council tax. The proposed budget would see Burnley Council working to the limit set nationally, which would mean an increase in household council tax bills of 2.99%.

This approach is in line with that being taken by many other councils and means that Burnley Council’s share of the council tax bill for a Band D property would be £337.82 for the year – an increase of £9.81 from the current level.

The majority of the full council tax bill for a household is made up of payments to Lancashire County Council (to cover work such as education, social services and highways), the police, fire authority and – in areas with a town or parish council – a ‘precept’ to cover their running costs.

Coun. Margaret Lishman, the council’s executive member for resources and performance management, said: “The council continues to take a strong and sensible approach to balancing our budget while, at the same time, ensuring that we continue to provide high-quality services to residents.

“We’re aware the past year has been challenging for everyone. We’ve put forward a budget that continues to help support the most vulnerable people in our communities whilst at the same time addressing the issues that matter most to them, such as clean streets, good quality housing, tackling anti-social behaviour and providing good quality leisure facilities.

“We’ve done all this and managed to keep a tight rein on our finances to provide a balanced budget, without any cuts to the high-quality services we provide to our residents.

“We’ve had to increase our share of the overall council tax bill in order to ensure we can maintain essential services for our residents. However, for the majority of our residents the proposed increase amounts to 13p a week.

“We stay committed to being an ambitious council despite the very serious financial challenges facing not just our borough, but the whole country.”

A number of growth items are set out in the proposed revenue budget, including:

Extra resources for sewer baiting to tackle rodent infestations;

Funding to help further improve housing conditions, in particular tackling damp and mould issues;

Emplying an enforcement officer to increase capacity to work with partners to tackle anti-social behaviour and deliver a programme of work to identify and target ward-based priorities;

Further funding for the Down Town community support hub.

The executive has agreed the recommendations before a final decision on setting the 2024/25 budget is made by full council at the end of this month.

Meanwhile, Lancashire County Council’s budget plans are based on an assumption that the authority will increase council tax by almost 5% in each of the next three years.

The latest update to the authority’s medium-term financial strategy reveals that County Hall’s calculations about how to balance its books rely on an expectation that bills will rise by 4.99% from 2024/25 through until 2026/27. That is currently the maximum amount permitted by the government without staging a local referendum on the subject.