St Albans City and District Council’s Cabinet agreed, at its meeting on 1 February, proposals for a budget for 2011/12 that ensures that nobody in the District will have to pay more District Council related Council Tax than last year, and delivers £2.2m of savings whilst protecting residents’ essential services and support for organisations helping vulnerable people locally. The Cabinet has recommended the budget to full Council who will consider the details at its meeting on 23 February.

The main features of the proposed budget are:
– No increase in the District Council’s element of Council Tax, or, in some parts of the District, an actual reduction on tax
– Savings of £2.2m
– Changes to the Council’s structure that will prepare it to meet both long term and immediate operational challenges
– Protection of essential services for residents
– Support for the vulnerable locally
– Capital financing to maintain the Council’s priorities

The Council recognises that the country is emerging from a recession and residents are faced with rising inflation and the possibility of an increase in interest rates later in the year. Assuming full Council approves the budget, this will be the third year in a row that the District Council’s element of Council Tax will not increase.

However, the Government has now reduced the Council’s grant by 16.2% for 2011-12 and 14.2% for 2012-2013 which together will result in a cumulative 28% reduction in revenue support grant funding over the next two years. This means that the Council needs to make savings of £2.2m for 2011-12 to help bridge the budget gap.

A significant portion of the savings are to be achieved through a reorganisation of the Council that will reduce the number of departments from 10 to seven. The reorganisation has been designed to protect frontline services.

The reorganisation will result in a reduction of 25-30 posts in 2011. These will mostly be met through the deletion of posts that are currently vacant and voluntary redundancies, which will save £250,000 in 2011/12, and £700,000 p.a. thereafter. It is likely that there may also need to be some compulsory redundancies. In the longer term, the Council’s structure is likely to reduce from its current 408 posts to under 350.

Average rent increases on Council housing properties are also to rise by 7.4%, as determined by central government.

The proposed budget ensures that the Council will be able to meet its statutory obligations as well as ten priorities which are set out in the Council’s Corporate Plan 2011-16. The Plan, which has been revised and was approved by Cabinet at this week’s meeting, will now be considered by full Council at a meeting on 23 February.

Residents views on the budget and the ten priorities were sought through the Council’s Community Panel, a representative selection of people from across the District. Feedback was broadly supportive and specific ideas and views have been fed into the Corporate Plan and the budget development process.