Cheshire East Council has approved new priorities and financial plans for the next four years, including its budget for the year ahead.
The new Cheshire East Plan 2025-29, adopted by council on Wednesday, 26th February, sets out a new set of commitments for the borough, and the vision "enabling prosperity and wellbeing for all in Cheshire East".
The council also agreed the budget for 2025-26 and financial strategy for the next four years. The budget sets out the council's forecast income, expenditure and savings, proposals for the use of exceptional financial support (EFS) from central government and a 4.99% increase in council tax.
The increase in council tax for Cheshire East Council, which it says is below the referendum limit set by government, is made up of two per cent for adult social care and 2.99 per cent for general purposes. This increase is equivalent to £1.72 per week for a Band D property.
Councillor Nick Mannion, leader of Cheshire East Council said, "Cheshire East is a great place to live, work and visit for many, and has so much potential to be a brilliant place for everyone.
"We are ambitious for our borough – and we know that residents have high expectations of their council. While we cannot promise to deliver everything for everybody everywhere, we know that we need to put the council on a sustainable financial footing so that we can drive improvements and deliver our ambitions for the borough.
"We have had to look at all the options available to us, this includes increasing council tax and we know that this will add financial pressure on residents. If people are struggling with council tax, we provide a council tax support scheme, which can provide a reduction on council tax bills for those on a low income. Information about this can be found on our website.
"Like many other councils, we have asked government for exceptional financial support. Our request has been granted in principle which will help us balance the budget in the shorter term and will help to establish longer-term financial sustainability through investment in transformation and improvement."
Councillor Michael Gorman, deputy leader added "The Cheshire East Plan sets out our ambition for our communities and places. We must maximise the potential of the borough, its communities and businesses to unlock prosperity and wellbeing for all. We need to work well with residents and partners, and we need to get the basics right to help unlock the opportunities at our fingertips.
"We know that to deliver affordable services and support, we need to transform the way the organisation works. £47.1 million of savings and mitigation are planned in 2025/26 alone, including savings from transformation, digital and service redesign, debt and cost recovery, and estates management.
"Finally, I would like to thank the hundreds of people who fed back on our approach to budget setting and who have contributed their ideas to the Cheshire East Plan. Your views have been invaluable in guiding the approach we have taken this year."
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
When you applied to increase it to 9.99% the government (in a rare moment of common sense), rejected the application, quite rightly.
Finally I hope the council will stop the use of nonsensical corporate speak such as "financial sustainability through investment in transformation" and talk plainly to residents who after all are the ones paying for the council's mismanagement and deserve better.
However, inflation is +19% since then as is average wages. State pension is +25% more.
Therefore, this is a 6% real-terms cut in council tax, since inflation exploded in 2022. Which is one of the reasons why so many councils have financial issues.
Cheshire East asked for a 10% rise because the council is also reorganising itself. This means overall job loses and fixing the long standing issues that have brought about its problems. For example, when Cheshire East was formed out of Cheshire County Council, it got 2 SEND schools, while Cheshire West got 18 of them. Consequently, the recent explosion in SEND demand that the council must legally provide means Cheshire East has to send students off borough, which costs a fortune. About 70% of its spending is now on adult and children’s care and SEND provision. This is for about 3% of the boroughs residents. The other 30% of spending goes on the things that are often not legally required but that 97% of the people use and value.
Cheshire East has a programme to build more SEND schools, so it can manage the cost. But that takes time and money and the government has accepted it needs to spend this and our budget cannot be cut.
However, rather than fund this by being honest and putting up council tax by 10% (which would bring it in line with Cheshire West’s tax rate) they refused. Instead they will lend Cheshire East ( ie you) the money instead.
It is loan though, so it has to be paid back over 20 years and with interest too. So that means it will cost double the amount borrowed. So, it’s like congratulating the Labour government for keeping your shopping bills lower, when they have added the extra cost of your groceries onto your mortgage. It’s a financial illusion. It doesn’t save you a penny, costs you far more and just makes a bigger problem for next year.
However, the Labour government have done it to fool you into thinking they are being prudent with your money, when the exact opposite is the case.
You referred to rising inflation causing financial problems for councils around the country, but did you mean borrowing (debt) that was taken on in an attempt to balance budgets became more expensive due to rising interest rates?
When that "method" of balancing a budget goes wrong the fault can't be laid at the feet of council tax payers who shouldn't be expected to bail out either the council or the comedians in central government.
Is it possible a 'Section 114 Notice' would've been a better option, perhaps if enough councils went down that route the government might have had to acknowledge there was a fundamental break-down in funding, including for special schooling and adult care.
Councils don't borrow to fund services as they are not allowed. The debt they have is to fund large capital projects like building bypasses and leisure centres. That is not the issue.
The problem is that in February 2022, Cheshire East set its Council Tax increase at 3%. Inflation had been below 3% for over a decade, so this seemed an easy decision. However, Putin invaded the Ukraine that day and inflation soon rocketed to 11.1%. The cost of energy and building work went even higher at +25%.
Businesses passed on these increases by immediately raising their prices. They also gave their staff inflationary rises, which meant the government got more in taxes too. They then increased state benefits, pensions and their departments budgets by inflationary amounts.
However, council tax can only be increased once a year, so councils had to handle the big price increases from their existing budgets. In February 2023, the Conservative government capped council tax at +5% to try and drive down inflation (why councils had this sole responsibility is anyone's guess though).
The Conservatives again capped it at 5% last year because of the election. So inflation is around 20% since 2022 but council tax has been capped at 13%.
That about a £25m a year cut in our spending power. Which is why we had to quickly introduce green bin charges to raise about £6m a year and the 3 weekly black bin collection, which saves about £1.3m.
Council Tax is a political football though, with both the Conservatives and now Labour using it to pretend to be prudent with your money. Then they waste huge sums on their own departments. When was the last public debate about funding for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport? It now gets £10bn a year, up 22% since 2022. So why does it warrant an inflationary increase but council's don't? Why do councils get the blame for the financial difficulties our MP's cause them?
Currently, the only councils who can ride this out are those with large reserves. For example, Manchester and Surrey both have £500m each. Cheshire East was founded in 2009 with only £20m reserves and that was spent down to £10m by 2019 when the current administration took over. We then had Covid, record inflation and a massive increase for SEND and social care services. That is what has broken our finances.
Going into S114 is never a better option though. A government team takes over the running of the council and looks for quick financial wins, such as closing libraires or doubling car parking fees. Their management team stays around for two years and charges the council £2m for their services. There is no upside to it that I can see.
Frankly, if the widespread financial difficulties of councils doesn't convince the government there is a major problem, then I don't think anything will.
Following a recent consultation with English councils, the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has concluded that the some of the £23.2bn of property assets owned by councils should be sold following a Government consultation with the sector during January.
It would be interesting to see what Cheshire East are selling
Look Mark,
Just drive down Water Lane then Altrincham road and turn left into Buckingham road, then rattle down there between the cars and potholes, then do a left into Chapel Lane, all the way past the Health Centre and onto the main road. Better still , do it on a Friday afternoon when the kids come out of school.
You may then understand what these good people are talking about. It’s a very dangerous shambles. Added to which , planning applications go in for hundreds more houses which don’t mention hundreds more cars, kids, dogs , bikes and such, to further populate and overload an already overloaded town, the infrastructure of which, is crumbling.
Please get real and stop the waffle … do something to fix it , that’s all. It’s Public service and your public depend on you to look after them, but making excuses is not going to help anybody . If you cut the waste, stop the overload, and fix the basics you will spend less, and we can enjoy what should be a pleasant place to live, but has become a hazardous building site with roads and pavements which were created for a horses and carts, not the deluge of traffic, people and animals who now need to live and move about here.