Council Tax to increase as Manchester City Council must save £13.8m

The consultation on how Manchester City Council plans to make £13.8m of savings for 2016/17 is set to end this Friday, 19 February.

Government funding levels assume Council Tax will rise to protect essential services, and the council has been informed there can be a tax increase of up to 2% to help protect adult social care.

Government funding to freeze Council Tax bills has also ended, and an additional 1.99% rise to support services is also proposed.

Without this proposed rise, only the second since 2010/11, the council would have to make another £5m of cuts. But after the increase has been implemented, Manchester residents would still have one of the lowest average Council Tax bills in the country.

The potential increase of 3.99% would add £31.18 a year to a typical Band A property.

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “As a Council our continuing challenge is to provide the leadership to support a world-class city with a growing economy and better lives and opportunities for the people who work here.

“The enormous cuts to our funding from central government over the last five years have made it a difficult balancing act. While the headline savings figure this time is smaller than previous years, mostly due to our prudent planning, we still face hard decisions because of the cumulative impact of all the cuts to our government funding.

“We would rather not have to look at increasing Council Tax. We know times are still tough for many people. But the position we have been placed in has left the Council very little room for manoeuvre.”

Councillor John Flanagan, executive member for finance, added: “I would stress that this is very much a draft budget at this stage and that, just as we always do, we will listen carefully to people’s views before putting forward definitive proposals.”

Responses to the consultation will be considered by various scrutiny committees and be factored into decision-making for the budget-setting Council meeting on Friday 4 March.

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