Millions of households are dealing with an extra squeeze on funds with nearly three in 4 native authorities planning to extend council tax by the utmost quantity allowed.
Of the 114 councils who present social care and have revealed their 2023/24 price range proposals, 84 are planning a 5% hike, analysis by the County Councils Network (CCN) suggests.
The Labour vice-chair of CCN, and chief of Cheshire East Council, Sam Corcoran, mentioned native authorities had “little choice” however to make the transfer.
“With inflation reaching levels not seen for over 40 years and with demand-led pressures for care services showing no sign of abating, local authority leaders are setting their budgets in the most difficult circumstances in decades,” he mentioned.
“We all recognise the price of residing disaster is impacting on each family within the nation and disproportionally on low incomes, however we have now little selection however to suggest council tax rises once more subsequent yr, with many native authorities reluctantly choosing most rises.
“With councils facing multi-million funding deficits next year, the alternative to council tax rises would be drastic cuts to frontline services at a time when people at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis need us to be there for them.
“With the monetary scenario for councils wanting extraordinarily robust for the following few years, we might be calling on the chancellor for additional assist in the March Budget.”
Previously, native authorities would have wanted to carry a referendum to boost the levy by greater than 3%, however Chancellor Jeremy Hunt raised this cover to five% final autumn.
The Office for Budget Responsibility says this can increase £3.3bn in 2026/27, rising to £4.8bn in 2027/28.
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A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities mentioned: “We recognise the pressures councils are facing and have made almost £60bn available over the next financial year – a 9% increase on 2022-23 – with the most deprived areas of England receiving 17% more per household this year than the least deprived.
“Our method to council tax balances the necessity to ship important providers whereas defending residents from extreme will increase, and we count on native authorities to take into accounts the challenges many households are dealing with.”
Source: information.sky.com”