Rotherham Council agrees council tax rise as cost of living crisis set to bite

Residents in a Band D property will pay an extra £72.66 per year, bringing their annual council tax bill to £1,687.24.

The rise will raise an extra £120.6m to help RMBC pay for “valuable front-lineservices, particularly services for vulnerable children and adults at a timewhen demand for these services continues to increase”.

The council has had to make £20m in savings due to the impact of austerity measures and “the 10 years of significant reductions in Government funding that followed.”

This, combined with additional expenditure and lost income caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to RMBC proposing to raise council tax to fund its services.

The rise is made up of 1.5 per cent basic council tax, plus an increase of three per cent for the Adult Social Care precept.

Addressing last week’s full council meeting, leader Chris Read said that the budget process had been “uncertain”, and that adult social care is the “single biggest pressure” on the council budget.

“This is a budget that begins to reap the difficult choices we’ve made over the last few years,” added Coun Read.

“From next month, the average person in work in Rotherham will be paying an additional £170 a year in National Insurance.

“Not a penny of it will find its way into our social care system for another three years.

“Far from meeting the funding gap that councils like ours face, there’s real concern that we will once again be left high and dry.

“We expect to spend £103m on adult social care in Rotherham next year.

“That’s a 25 per cent increase since I first stood here, delivering the budget in 2015.

“But if you add together the additional money we’ve received from Government this year in the form of new grants, even if we didn’t have any other increasing costs, those grants would still not cover the cost of that additional £11m.

“If we are to avoid cutting other services, we need to do what the Government tells councils to do, and increase the adult social care levy.”

The leader of the Conservative group, Councillor Emily Barley, submitted an amendment to freeze council tax, using the council’s underspend to cover rising costs.

“The cost of living is going up” said Coun Barley.

“Energy, clothes, food furniture, petrol – the list goes on.

“People who are already struggling are going to struggle even more, and people who were previously ok are now starting to be hit.

“Inflation is really beginning to bite, and all of the economic forecasts suggest that this situation is going to get worse before it gets better.

“I and the Conservative group believe that if we can do something to help the people of Rotherham with these rising costs, then we should do it.

“In the last financial year a number of council departments underspent, and the plan is for that money to be put into reserves.

“Instead of throwing millions in the bank and then sitting on it, we will use that money to fund a council tax discount, which will ensure that nobody in Rotherham pays more council tax in the coming financial year than in the one that’s just closing now.

Labour councillor David Roche branded the amendment “short -termism,” which was not “thinking about the future.”

The amendment was voted down and the budget was passed with 32 votes for and 19 against.

What projects will be funded next year?

A secondary studio space to host smaller scale performances at the Civic Theatre – £45,000 CCTV upgrades – £250,000 Road safety schemes – £250,000 Anti-climb materials to the wall at Ulley Reservoir – £95,000 Electric vehicle charging – £173,000 Building decarbonisation – £85,000 Extra road sweeping vehicles £210,000