Lancashire County Council share of Council Tax to rise almost 5%

Lancashire County Council’s share of Council Tax is to rise by almost 5%, as the authority set out their spending plans for the next year.

The plans have been agreed at a meeting of the full council.

Amongst the plans are a commitment to spend an extra £45m on highway repairs such as potholes over the next three years.

Schemes such as creating more SEND units at mainstream schools and creating more children's homes within the county to be run in-house by the council will continue.

In total the council set a revenue budget of £1,244.620m.

Of this £538.125m will be spent on Adult Services and £278.263 on Education and Children's Services.

Overall the council's portion of the Council Tax will rise by 4.99 per cent, with 2 per cent of this ring fenced for Adult Services as directed by the Government.

Councillor Alan Vincent, Deputy Leader of the Council, said: “Our finances are in a stable state thanks to many years of being prudent about our spending.

"In fact, I would say that 90 per cent of councils would love to swap places with us as we have money in reserves and we are able to balance the books.

"We are however still seeing growing demand in areas such as adults and children's services and we are working on innovative ways to ensure we best serve people while reducing some costs.

"Our children's home scheme is an example of this. Instead of paying for high cost child placements at independent children's homes, which could even be outside the county, we are creating our own homes that will be run by county council staff. That means that children stay closer to their roots, means we employ more Lancashire people and we save money for council tax payers.

"Another example is our new fleet of mini-buses for Home to School Transport for children and young people with SEND will also cut the cost of travelling to our special schools, while the creation of SEND units at mainstream schools means children and young people won't have to travel as far for their education.

"We also know that things like improving our roads are really important to people and that's why we are committed an extra £45m in the budget over the next three years, although we will look to spend this money as early as possible so people feel the benefit sooner.

"It still remains the case that costs like large public sector pay rises, National Insurance increases and inflation will all have an impact on ours costs making things challenging and has meant we have had to reluctantly increase council Tax.

"This, combined, with the fact that Government expects in its own calculations and distribution of monies that council tax will rise by 4.99% means we have no realistic choice but to reluctantly increase next financial year by that amount.”