City of Bristol - Cabinet Meeting - How high will your Council Tax be this year?

The Cabinet of the City of Bristol is meeting today (Mon 4th Feb), with a large element of the meeting relating to the City's Budget for 08/09.

The PDF versions of the budget proposals (Revenue & Capital) are available from the Council website, and an Excel version of the Revenue Budget is available from this blog:

http://jamesbarlow.co.uk/files/draftbccbudgetjmbv1.xls

Key points for Council Tax Payers:

• UK Inflation is either 2.1% (CPI) or 4.0% (RPI) depending on which statistic you prefer.
• The total revenue budget for Bristol is forecast to be £327,900,000.00
• The grant from Central Government (your money) is £158,145,000.00
• The net requirement from taxpayers (also your money) is forecast to be £167,120,000.00
• The Taxbase (see here) is forecast to be 131,384 households
• For Council services (excluding Police & Fire) a Band D household will pay £1272.00, a rise of exactly 4% on last year's figure.

An interesting point here - just from the growth in new households in Bristol, the council would have netted an extra £3.5 million in council tax receipts at last year's prices. One would think that, given the economies of scale associated with buying services for 403,000 people, one of these days we would actually get a real or even absolute reduction in the growth of tax rates. Well, not this year.

Avon Fire Authority had a think about budgets at their January 11th meeting, and they want £44,835,000 which will add 4.72% to the Council Tax bill. New figure? Around £56.15 for a Band D property. This is with an anticipated increase in the (Area) Taxbase of 1.2% from around 355,614 to 359,800. No economies of scale there either.

Avon & Somerset Police and have yet to release a forecast for the next financial year. Last year they raised their prices by 6.7% to £147.17 for a Band D property, with the following comment from the unelected chair of the Police Authority:

Those living in a Band D house in Avon and Somerset will pay around 40 pence a day in their council tax towards policing – that's way less than the cost of a loaf of bread.

I wonder if they'll be making that comparison this year? You can actually get a sliced, white own-brand loaf for 37 pence at Tesco, although the average price is nearer a pound.

Given that the Police have actually underspent in Bristol by £383,000 in the current year, one would hope we would get a bit of a discount this time. If we assume the Police manage to keep their increase to 4.0%, the new Band D price will be £153.06 (up by £5.89), which is - per head - less than the city spends on rubbish.

The forecast Council Tax figures for Bristol? Brace yourself:

If you can't make it to the meeting, remember you can watch it online with the Public-I webcasting system. Make the effort, guys - it's your money and your city.

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