Councillors set to deliver council tax hikes five days before Christmas for West Northamptonshire

Councillors are set to deliver a sackful of Christmas misery for West Northamptonshire with a series of grim financial updates on December 20.

Next year's draft budget detailing increases in charges and council tax is set to be published a few days ahead of a special Cabinet meeting later this month. The reports were all due to go before a meeting on Tuesday (December 6) but pushed back until an extra meeting squeezed in five days before Christmas which will be the first opportunity to scrutinise a raft of policy documents covering the budget, treasury, finance and proposals to “revise” car park charges.

Councillors are already being warned of a £4.9 million black hole in this year's budget as soaring costs wiped out a £10 million contingency inside four months. That figure was down from a previous £7.6 million overspend highlighted in September, although few details on how the £2.7 million savings were achieved have not been made public and the council now says a report which cabinet member for finance, Cllr Malcolm Longley, said “anyone could dial into” is actually an “internal” document and not for general publication.

In a statement issued to this newspaper earlier this month, Cllr Longley said a number of “budget mitigations” had been made to address the financial position including “holding vacant posts, seeking ways to deliver services in a more efficient manner and maximising income opportunities… to name a few.”

Cllr Longley has admitted discussions over next year's budget will be “a bit tricky” as they grapple with an anticipated £15 million overspend. Public service sector union UNISON warned waste collections, leisure centres, nurseries and other vital services will all be hit as councils tackle massive deficits in 2023-24.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's autumn statement gave local authorities a green light to hike council tax by up to five percent from April.

Council tax can currently go up by 2.99 percent a year — 1.99 percent on the general charge and another one percent to cover social care — without requiring a referendum. The Chancellor glossed over the change during his Commons speech promising only to give authorities “greater flexibility”, but the full budget text which was published later confirmed that maximum general increases of three percent plus two percent on the social care precept from April 2023.

The government says it expects 95 percent of authorities to take up the full increase.

But thousands in the former Daventry district council area will be hit even harder as their bills are ‘levelled up’ with the rest of the unitary authority.

A three-year plan to harmonise council tax charges with the former Northampton Borough and South Northamptonshire council areas means bills in Daventry could increase by nearly seven percent.

South Northants will see a smaller increase because bills there are already higher than in the other two areas — but residents there will also have to cough up an extra £42 a year if they want to continue garden waste collections as the council extends its subscription scheme from April.