AN INCREASE in basic council tax has been proposed as part of a plan to boost Wiltshire’s recovery following an “unprecedented year”.

Wiltshire Council’s cabinet has outlined £412m proposals to help the county bounce back in a budget for 2021 – including setting aside a £4m fund over four years to support market towns hit hard by Covid.

Alongside a 1.99 per cent increase in council tax, the council is also proposing a £6.6m allocation for investment in Children’s Social Care, a three per cent levy specifically for Adult Social Care, £2.6m more for waste services, and reversing a planned £1m reduction in Public Health funding.

Increasing the discretionary hardship fund to £300k to help residents who cannot afford their council tax bill was also proposed, held to assist those families and residents that, after undertaking all avenues of support to reduce their council tax bill, need further support from the council, has also been proposed, as well as an investment of over £2.1m to bring all its leisure service operations in-house, and an investment of nearly £2m to help fund the planned £214m funding boost to the council’s capital programme.

The council said it recognises that towns throughout the county will need support to help them recover. A £4m fund, made up of £1m a year for the next four years, will be set up to support market towns to recover but the exact use of the money is still to be determined.

The council estimates the impact felt from the pandemic in the budget will be around £5m, which mainly takes into account the loss of income from services such as leisure, libraries and car parking but not the loss of council tax.

However, the Cabinet is proposing a balanced budget in 2021/22 which builds on strong financial management, despite the challenges of COVID-19, and has seen the council also predicting a balanced 2020/21 budget.

The council will receive “significant one off funding support from Government in 2021/22 in recognition of the ongoing response to the pandemic”. The council recognises the need to maintain services, especially to vulnerable residents, and this has been of paramount importance in putting forward its budget proposals.

Cllr Pauline Church, Cabinet Member for Finance, Procurement and Commercial Investment, said: “This is a budget like no other, and takes into account the quite extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in.”

The budget will be voted on at a full Wiltshire Council meeting on February 23.

“Just like all local authorities, our finances have been hit hard by the pandemic, but our commitment and focus is to ensure our villages, towns, city, residents, businesses and communities get all the support they need to help them recover from the damage caused by the pandemic.

“Of course there are challenges ahead, but we will still be investing in vital services and programmes to, not only help our communities recover, but to help them thrive.

“We have always been diligent with our finances and that ensured we had a strong foundation in place to deal with the unexpected, even though we couldn’t have predicted the profound impact COVID-19 has had.

“Our proposals will now go through a transparent and rigorous scrutiny process and we look forward to talking through the decisions we have made and the all-important context behind them.”

The budget will go through the following process before it goes forward to Full Council on 23 February:

• Members briefing

• Financial Planning Task Group

• Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee – budget scrutiny

• Cabinet

• Group leaders meet with Trade Union representatives

• Group leaders meet with non-domestic ratepayers

• Overview and scrutiny management committee – budget amendments

• Council summons published

The draft budget proposals and report can be found at wiltshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=1160&MId=13848

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