Council Tax bills to increase again

Council Tax bills are set to rise this year as budgets are being set while the final cost of the pandemic to local authorities is unknown.

South Holland District Council’s draft budget sets out a plan to add £4.95 a year to the annual band D bill.

Lincolnshire County Council also looked at budgets this week and looked to add 1.99 per cent to its part of the bill.

The police and parish council precepts have yet to be added.

A special budget meeting of South Holland’s cabinet is due to be held on Monday when the finances will be laid out to members.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact across the world. In setting this budget for the medium term, we have had to make wider assumptions compared to previous year,” says a report to go before members.

The draft budget will go before the full council at a meeting on January 20 before it is finally approved on February 16. Annual bills are issued in April.

If the draft is approved as it stands, the annual Band D bill for the district will rise from £179.73 to £184.68 – the vast majority of the bill is made up of the county council’s precept.

According to a graphic included in the report, South Holland’s bill for last year was in the middle of all the districts in the county. The most expensive is the City of Lincoln at more than £250 and the least was East Lindsey at under £150.

The South Holland budget “assumes for 20/21 that impacts of COVID-19 remain with us and therefore some estimates for income have been reduced,” says the report going before Cabinet.

“This draft budget provides a middle ground of funding assumptions.”

There is a Council Tax base of 28,794 as opposed to 28,492 which was last year’s base for the bill.

The total General Fund budget for South Holland was £37.2m last year and is estimated to be £36m for 2021/22.

The district council’s element of the bill equates to £2.55 a week for the coming year and was £3.46 for the last financial year.

The Cabinet report was put together in an ‘unprecedented level of uncertainty.’

It does show that the low interest rates on investments saw a return of £228,000 which was down by £155,000.

At this stage neither the county nor district councils know the details of any further grants from central government to help with the cost of the pandemic as the country remains in a third lockdown.

On Tuesday, the county council’s executive heard that authority plans to raise the tax by 1.99 per cent, but not by three per cent as the government have said they could for adult social care.

Chair Martin Hill said: “We hope it (not rising to three percent) will support not only individual households, but also businesses. I don’t think we should be putting on more Council Tax when the budget is well balanced and we have the reserves as well.”