Slough Borough Council have announced a planned 2.8% rise in council tax over the course of the next year in the new budget.

The Council have claimed that the tax rise is being implemented to cover the inflation cost of delivering services. The Council’s portion of Council tax will rise from £1,096.59 to £1,127.78 for average Band C properties.

Annual Council Tax from all local authorities is likely to increase by over £50 for Band C properties, although this figure could rise when the Fire Service finish a public consultation on a planned increase in their own tax.

£8.1m of further spending has to be made in order to match increased demand for council led services. The Council plan on investing a further £750k on temporary accommodation and £1.4m on children’s services. A further £500,000 will be spent to deliver home to school transport for children and upwards of £750,000 will be spent on providing additional adult social care.

Each year, Slough Borough Council receives a share of the Revenue Support Grant. As a result of austerity measures, the council have seen this cut by over £50m since 2010/11, falling from £56.8m to £6.1m. Since then, £99.1m of savings have been made b the council across frontline services, with £12.4m worth of savings needed in the 2019/20 budget.

£200,000 has also been set aside as a contingency plan in case of consequences stemming from Brexit. Councillor James Swindlehurst said:

“The aim of us to put money aside is because we are weeks away now from the planned exit date. We have not had much communication from the government. In an absence of information from government we felt it better to put some protection in ourselves.

“We have seen since the end of December a no-deal scenario start to have a lot more planning and consequences associated with it because everyone had been spending 18 months assuming there was a process that would bring back a deal. Our aim was to make sure that we put money aside to deal with the potential consequences.

“If we end up not needing this money, it will be money we can use on other frontline services.”

The plans are subject to scrutiny and ratification with a hearing on the proposed changes scheduled next month.