Calderdale Council’s Cabinet has revealed budget proposals which will support a significant increase in investment in social care, to help meet rising demand over the next three years.
The Council has already planned to increase funding for adults’ and children’s social care over the next three years, within its medium term financial strategy.
This allocated funding of £3.7 million in 2018-2019, £4.5 million in 2019-20 and £5.2 million in 2020-21, to allow the Council to provide the right support for looked after children and to ensure that care workers are paid the National Living Wage.
Leader of Calderdale Council, Cllr Tim Swift said:
Whilst the Council’s budget position is very challenging and it is essential that we balance the books, we also need to target investment into those areas which need it most. Already two thirds of the Council’s total spending is on adults’ and children’s social care, and this need will continue to grow.
As our overall spending remains tightly limited, this inevitably means that fewer resources are available for the universal ‘front line’ services, such as looking after parks, keeping the streets clean and dealing with waste and recycling. But we know that these are important to local people, so we have done everything we can to protect these services as far as possible.
We must also make sure that the Council has a robust three year budget, that’s sustainable beyond 2020. That means that we need to continue to deliver our major infrastructure projects including tackling congestion on the A629, the £40 million scheme to transform Halifax town centre and our £22 million investment in new LED street lighting, which will improve lives and help to build prosperity across the borough in the years to come.
In December Sajid Javid announced that to ease growing pressure on local government services, councils would be able to increase their Council Tax requirement by an additional 1%, to 3%, without a local referendum, in line with inflation.
To help the Council maintain essential local services, the budget proposals include a 2.99% rise in Council Tax rates in 2018-19, a further 2.99% in 2019-20, reducing to 1.99% in 2020-21.
The Cabinet is also proposing to use the Social Care Precept to raise Council Tax bills by a further 3% in 2018-19 so that the Council can continue to provide high quality care for frail and vulnerable people, and to help meet increasing demand as the population ages.
The Social Care Precept was introduced by the Government to help local authorities fund the continuing growth in demand for adult social care services.
The budget proposals identify some areas of additional investment for services which require extra support:
- additional funding for winter maintenance and gritting;
- targeted funding to help tackle poverty and homelessness;
- continued funding for the emergency living scheme to support those affected most by the changes to benefit schemes and
- an additional fire safety building control officer which was a recommendation within the fire safety review following the tragedy at Grenfell Tower.
To save money there will be some changes to Council services and these are outlined in the Cabinet’s budget proposals. These include:
- reducing the number of managers and other staff by merging teams and moving more services on-line;
- working more effectively with our partners in the health sector to maximise the resources we use jointly;
- funding different priorities from the public health budget;
- increasing the charges from some services that the Council provides, such as bereavement services;
- reducing some of the money paid to West Yorkshire Combined Authority and
- spending on IT, staff training and other internal support services.
The budget proposals are available to view at www.calderdale.gov.uk. People can have their say on the budget proposals:
By emailing us:
Download the feedback form from www.calderdale.gov.uk and when completed email it to budget@calderdale.gov.uk
By writing to us:
Print out the completed form from www.calderdale.gov.uk and post it (no stamp required) to:
Budget Consultation
FREEPOST
Licence number RTJK-SCKU-XGCL
Town Hall
Halifax HX1 1UJ
The draft proposals, which were presented at a Cabinet meeting on Monday 15 January 2018 at Halifax Town Hall, cover the next three financial years to 2020/21.
All responses will be considered before the final recommendations are made by Cabinet on Monday 12 February 2018.
Final decisions will be taken at the Annual Budget Council meeting at 6pm on Monday 26 February 2018 at Halifax Town Hall.