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Sutton Borough Liberal DemocratsWorking for you all year round
Beddington, Belmont, Carshalton, Cheam, Clockhouse, Nonsuch, St Helier, Stonecot, Sutton, The Wrythe, Wallington and Worcester Park. |
Hat-trick of council tax freezes set to be agreed
February 1, 2012 3:13 PM
Council tax is set to be frozen in Sutton for the third year in a row.
Sutton Council is poised to be one of the first in London to freeze its part of bills to help residents through difficult economic times.
If the plan is approved by the full council, it would leave the full-year charge for each Band D home at £1,140.89 after Sutton takes advantage of a 2.5 per cent one-off grant from the government. Not increasing council tax for three years is equivalent to a 14 per cent cut in real terms.
Cllr Sean Brennan, Leader of the Council, said: "We recognise that this is a challenging time for many Sutton residents and we believe they don't want us to make it any more difficult now by raising council tax.
"There are some demanding decisions ahead but we felt it was right to listen to what residents have been saying and freeze council tax for the third time in three years."
It comes despite Sutton Council suffering one of the poorest funding settlements in London and the borough's formula grant funding from government being reduced by £8.4m in 2011/12 and a further £5.7m next year - a 22 per cent reduction over two years.
A borough-wide residents' survey was recently carried out, which included a question about budget priorities.
It showed that most people wanted to see changes to the way services are delivered rather than service cuts or higher charges - which the council is doing everything it can to try and achieve.
Thirty per cent of those asked also wanted local people to have more control over the money spent in their area.
Cllr Brennan said: "There's no doubt that we are facing some formidable financial challenges. This is a one-off grant and there is no indication if any further money will be available next year, so we could have chosen to raise council tax by up to 3.5 per cent to ease the pressure on our budget.
"But thanks to some prudent financial management and some good anticipation of the situation, we are in a better position than many councils. And it's clear that our residents would rather not have an increase so we will be doing everything we can to reduce our costs and avoid waste before we cut any frontline services or raise charges.
"Over the next few months we will be discussing the residents' survey at our local committees to help us understand how people can be better informed about how the council tax is spent and get more involved in local decision-making."
The recommendation to freeze Sutton's share of the council tax is set to be made despite a number of councils, including neighbouring Surrey, opting to increase theirs.
Sutton's leaders say they can freeze the tax because of a programme to reduce costs called Smarter Services Sutton that is reviewing everything the council does from scratch. It aims to save £33m over the next few years.
A crucial package of changes to the council's staff terms and conditions has also saved the taxpayer almost £1m.
The freeze will be discussed at the council's Executive meeting on February 6 ahead of a final decision at full council on 5 March, when the authority's budget will be formally set.
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