Rotherham council tax rise agreed as average household to pay extra £60 per year

The increase, equivalent to an extra £61.42 for a band D property per year, is needed to fund an increasing demand for services, rising inflation and a government pay settlement which falls ‘significantly short’ of mitigating financial pressures faced by the council.

Without this increase, RMBC says they would have to make cuts in excess of £10 million.

The rise is made up of a 1.5 per cent increase in the basic rate of council tax and two per cent to pay for adult social care – which is experiencing ‘significant pressures’.

The council has set aside an extra £7.5m to fund adult social care this year, to ensure care staff are paid the real living wage of £12 per hour, and to cope with rising demand.

Fees will be increased to cover wage increases for staff, reduce staff turnover, and cover increased energy bills.

Residential home fees, which are currently set at £550 per week, will rise to £606.

Coun David Roche, cabinet member for adult social care and health welcomed additional government funding, but added that 60 per cent of councils nationally are cutting adult social services ‘due to Tory underfunding’.

RMBC is set to use £2.3m of its £62.6m reserves to plug the £6m gap between its income and outgoings.

The rest will be made up of an increase in fees and charges for services such as parking, weddings, facilities hire, licensing applications and pest control.

Finance bosses say the gap is due to demand for children’s residential placements, home-to-school transport, inflation, and increased demand for homelessness services.

An extra £534k will be used to ‘create cleaner streets’ with a seven-day-a-week service in high footfall areas, and £9.8m will be invested in flood defences.

Consideration will also be given to what measures are required to protect Catcliffe from flooding in the future, following the devastating floods in October.

Leader of the council, councillor Chris Read, told Wednesday’s meeting that he believed the increase, which is below the government’s cap of five per cent, is the lowest in Yorkshire.

“We are in a position that many of our colleagues elsewhere in the country would love to be. Out of 129 councils, only eight could propose a lower council tax increase than the maximum allowed,” he added.

In the budget, £360,000 has been set aside to provide baby packs for every child born in the borough, to provide essentials.

The Conservative group in its alternative budget, proposed that the packs are to be supplied for the first child only, to households that receive means-tested benefits.

The move would save £280,000 over the next two years – but Labour councillors blasted the proposal as ‘bonkers’.

The Conservatives’ proposal, which was ultimately voted down, would also increase the street cleaning budget, scrap the restorative hate crime service and community wealth building budgets, increase the amount of inclusive play equipment for children with disabilities and allocate £100k for a youth club programme.

A further £1.9m from the Towns and Villages fund would be allocated Maltby High Street and other high streets in the borough to ‘support local communities’.

Councillor Josh Bacon told the meeting that money had been ‘wasted’ on cycle and bus lanes ‘that nobody wants’ while communities in Rother Valley are overlooked.

Councillor Simon Ball added: “Some of our communities do not need the same level of investment as others. We also need to invest in new services….and to support our parish councils and local organisations. Labour need to realise we are not just a town centre.”

The Liberal Democrats also proposed an alternative budget, which would include scrapping the market and library redevelopment and devolving the funding to towns and villages.

Councillor Drew Tarmey told the meeting that Rotherham does not need a ‘1970s style market’, as ‘people don’t go to town centre markets in the way that they did 40 years ago’.

The proposal was voted down, and Coun Read added that the council would have to send millions of pounds back to the government if the project was scrapped, and that other markets in South Yorkshire have been successful.

The budget was passed with Labour voting in favour, the Liberal Democrats against, and the Conservatives abstaining.