Last ever budget agreed by Northampton Borough Council

The £27.8 million budget – which sees council tax increase by £5 a year for a band D property – features £1.4 million of ‘savings’ and cuts to services. These include the deletion of seven vacant job positions amounting to £206,000, a £90,000 cut to reduction in available grants funding, reducing the ICT budget by £50,000 and a £40,000 cut to the council’s digital team.

One of the bigger sums is a £200,000 reduction of existing costs in the Veolia contract, although no details are included in the budget as to what this entails, saying only that ‘various options are being drawn up’.

This is also the first year that the borough council will collect an annual £42 charge for garden waste collections from borough households.

Speaking at the the Guildhall on Monday (February 24) Liberal Democrat councillor Brian Markham said the £42 charge would not get the council the income they thought it would as he doesn’t think residents will pay it, and he thinks there will be an increase in fly-tipping and bonfires.

Labour leader Councillor Danielle Stone said that this year’s budget was ‘as fragile as she had seen’ at the borough and questioned the nature of the £200,000 Veolia saving.

She said: “Well done to all the finance officers and heads of service for making a valiant attempt to make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.

“There are £200,000 savings laid against the Veolia contract. That’s interesting. Why that amount? What is going to be taken out? The four per cent profit margin? The three per cent inflation per year? Or is it services?

“Why is the saving requirement not £100,000? Then we could stop the green waste stealth tax, which it is hoped, will produce a contribution to the budget of £750,000. And if it doesn’t?”

But Councillor Brandon Eldred, the cabinet member for finance, defended the budget and questioned why Labour had not come forward with any financial amendments to it.

He said: “This has been a difficult budget to balance. Council tax is set to increase by £5 a year for a band D property, which is less than last year. Labour has not come up with any proposals for us tonight, as usual.”

And the borough leader, Councillor Jonathan Nunn, added: “Labour says that this is a fragile budget and you might be right on that. We certainly have to do more with less. The council tax increase just about covers the staff pay rise.”

The extra income from council tax is set to net the council an additional £300,000 each year.

As well as the revenue budget, which covers council services, a capital programme of £47.6 million was also approved which includes enhancements to parks and sports facilities, car park improvements and replacements of footbridges. Borrowing accounts for £31 million of the capital scheme, with £12 million coming from the council’s own finances and the rest coming from section 106 funds from housing developers and from grants.

There was also a Housing Revenue Account budget made up of £53.7 million which represents the council’s housing stock. This will be boosted by an average rent increase of 2.7 per cent per house, which Councillor Eldred said was ‘the first time it had increased in years’.