Report of Councillor Phillip Cowen, Executive Member for Finance Revenues and Benefits.

Councillor Cowen, the Executive Member for Finance, Revenue & Benefits presented the report.

As had been seen in the previous agenda item, the budget setting was a key component of the level of Council Tax set as a District that enabled this Council to provide the many statutory core services in addition to specific initiatives that was essential for the health and wellbeing of the residents and businesses within Breckland.

This Council supported the vulnerable and the homeless and also invested in the five market towns, it allocated community grants across the District and was supporting those in hardship as mentioned earlier with the community shop, the outreach food and support bus and the community fridges and alike.  This Council was also supporting businesses across the District.

The Council did received some support from Central Government but as Members were aware funding levels were reduced year on year and it received significant income as a Council through its fees and charges that were levied through the Council’s Environmental Health and Planning Services and alike, but in order to provide for all of the above, including those discretionary services, a District Council Tax had to be levied, and this Tax, the lowest of any district council in the Country, at around £100.68 for a Band D property, enabled the Council to affectively repay those Council Tax payers £750 worth of services to households across the District. 

The bottom line in this budget was for an outlay of £1.99 per week for a Band D property, residents received services, delivered and provided by this Council to the value of £14.42 which was a good dividend for the amount of money that this Council paid out. 

The Executive Member of Finance, Revenue & Benefits then proposed and read aloud the two recommendations which were duly seconded.    

Councillor Birt did not agree with the statement mentioned above in respect of the £750 worth of services as many residents had to pay extra for a garden waste bin and also had to pay extra to submit planning applications.  He felt that the Council provided a very small programme of statutory services and he had made multiple representations at Cabinet and at the Overview & Scrutiny Commission and his concerns had been almost partly ignored and therefore could not vote for this increase.

Councillor Atterwill had not voted in favour of the budget, the previous agenda item, but he would reluctantly vote for the increase in Council Tax, otherwise the budget would fail.

Councillor Gilbert could not support the Council Tax setting purely due to not agreeing with the Special Expenses; however, he wanted it to be noted that he had been very proud of the debate at this Council meeting even though the proposed amendments from the Opposition Members had not been supported.

Referring to Councillor Gilbert’s comment about Special Expenses relating to streetlights, Councillor Hewett, the Executive Member for Property & Projects explained that this service was provided at cost as could be seen at paragraph 1.3 of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39