Trafford council tax 2024/25 to increase as £2m to be cut from adult and children's services

Residents in Trafford are to be hit with a 4.99 per cent increase in their council tax alongside £2m-plus cuts to adult and children’s services. The move was approved by the authority’s full council meeting last night (Wednesday 21 February) as it approved a net revenue budget of £217.83m for 2024/25.

Trafford Town Hall

Cuts have been forced by a £17.8m hole in the authority’s finances which has prompted the council to dip into its dwindling cash reserves to the tune of £5.58m and target ‘income generation’ and ‘service delivery savings’ adding up to £9.52m. The money the council gets from central government in combined grants will rise by £2.3m from last year to £46.499m.

A further £0.775m in surplus council tax payments from this year will also support the forthcoming budget. Children’s services cuts include a ‘review of placements for looked after children’ which will save £500,000; a ‘continuation of the service redesign', saving £50,000; a ‘review’ of the ‘directorate management team’ saving £104,000; and a complete review of the service, saving £97,000.

In adult services, a total of £1.4m will be saved, pulled from its weight management service (£28,000); a review of bad debt provision (£50,000); a reduction in the ‘demographic growth budget (£200,000); changes to services for people with a learning disability and/or autism (£300,000) and a review of ‘reablement services’ (£600,000).

Fees and charges for services like nursing home placements, day care transport, home care, pendant alarms, administration of funerals and estates, as well as car parking, allotments and waste management will go up. The Labour-controlled council is blaming government austerity over the last 14 years which means it is facing a further budget gap of £29.6m in the following two financial years.

Council leader Cllr Tom Ross described it as the most difficult budget the Council had ever had to set, due to massive cuts in Council funding from central government in recent years.

Cllr Ross said: “We’ve had to find savings every year for many years now and we keep getting tasked to do more with less money.

“I’m delighted that we can still continue to serve our borough, particularly the most vulnerable people. But we know we could do even more if we received fairer funding.”

The budget has been approved against the backdrop of complaints from Trafford town hall leaders that it is among the 20 lowest funded local authorities in England and that it has the second lowest council tax in Greater Manchester. Executive member for finance change and governance Councillor Jo Harding said she was presenting Labour’s sixth balanced budget to the council.

But she said: “I do this with cautious trepidation, as I know, and we all know, the parlous state of local government funding and what lies ahead in relation to balancing future budgets.” She said that since last year’s budget ‘nothing has changed’ in the Government’s approach towards local government finance. “In fact, things have got worse,” she said.

Cllr Ross added: “We spend our money wisely and efficiently but our funding per person is simply too low. If we don’t get fairer funding for our residents, we will need to find another £29m in savings over the next two years. That’s cuts of more than 13 per cent at a time when more and more people are needing our support.

“We will continue to fight for fairer funding on behalf of our residents and communities so we can provide them with the best services and support.”