Hertfordshire County Council Proposes Draft Budget to Protect Vital Services
Hertfordshire County Council has published its draft budget for the next financial year. The proposed budget continues to invest in the council’s Corporate Plan priorities while maintaining the services we all use and providing support to the people who need it most.
Like councils across the country, Hertfordshire County Council continues to face huge financial challenges due to soaring rates of inflation and high demand for council services. Overall, the county council will spend over £1billion next year delivering essential services for residents. As a result, the council has needed to make some difficult decisions to be able to propose a balanced budget for the new financial year, which begins on 1 April 2023.
In order to deliver a balanced budget, the county council will be making savings of £27.4m in 2023/24 – the highest level of savings since 2017. And only a small proportion of these savings (£2.9m) will impact on service provision or partners. These savings are in addition to those already made in the autumn to ensure a balanced budget for the remainder of the current financial year.
However these savings alone will not be enough to balance the budget, so in order to protect frontline services, Hertfordshire County Council is also proposing to raise council tax by 4.99% (including 2% specifically for social care). This means a typical Band D household will be paying £1,605.63, an increase of £1.47 per week.
Cllr Richard Roberts, Leader of Hertfordshire County Council, said: ‘Given the challenges that we know residents are facing with the increased cost of living, proposing a rise in council tax has been a very difficult decision. However, the alternative would be to make significant cuts to council services at a time when many people really need us to be there for them.
‘We promised in the Autumn that we would do all we can to maintain services for residents, particularly those who need our help the most. The budget we’re proposing will protect vital services and ensure that we continue to provide the right support, services and advice to our residents as they seek to balance their own budgets.’
The proposed budget reflects the commitments made in the council’s Corporate Plan to deliver a cleaner, greener and healthier Hertfordshire, including:
- £38m to ensure adult care providers can continue to support residents – including a 9.68% wage increase for care staff to help recruitment and retention, matching the increase in the national living wage and continuing to ensure that Hertfordshire care wages are well above both the national and real living wages (supported by the social care precept)
- £15m is expected from the extension of the Household Support Fund to support the most vulnerable residents with the cost of living
- An extra £19m for Childrens’ Services, including an extra £5.2m to support the children in council care
- £10m for home-to-school transport for children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities to ensure they can get to school easily
- £6.4m to support waste disposal services, alongside new contracts that will mean that no waste in the county will go to landfill from 2024
- £4.6m of extra funding into highways revenue budgets to cover inflation and ensure repairs and maintenance work on our roads can continue
- £36.4m to continue work to improve recycling centres and make the waste infrastructure fit for the future
- Funding to continue moving forward the Brookfield Riverside and Garden Village developments in Broxbourne
- Continuing to invest in the council website to enable more people to carry out transactions online
The county council is also investing in projects that will ensure future savings. This investment will go into a number of projects that will help residents remain independent for longer, keep families together through early intervention schemes and save taxpayers money by transforming partnership working.
These proposed budget plans will be considered by the Council’s Cabinet on Monday 16 January.
