Council tax hike confirmed

The Conservative led authority passed its budget for 2020/21 at a meeting on Thursday, including a 3.9 per cent rise in council tax.

More than 67 per cent of Walsall residents live in Band A and B properties.

This means the total cost of council tax bills for the whole year in 2020/21 will be £1,338.17 for Band A – an increase of £53.08 from last year.

Council leader Mike Bird hailed his Tory administration’s budget as balanced and necessary to bring the authority into the 21st century.

The document was different in that it did not list a number of service cuts, as has been the case in previous years, and instead the emphasis was on savings across directorates coming from the Walsall Proud Programme.

This sees the authority paying consultants PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) £10 million over a number of years to deliver three times as many savings as the council faces a £71 million budget cut over the next three years.

But Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors criticised the budget and said the cuts were “hidden” and prevented them from tabling alternative proposals.

Councillor Bird said: “You would normally see a list of savings, some would call them cuts, but that is not the case this year.

“Because the council has started a process of changing the way this council works. We have changed because it was necessary to move into the 21st century.

“The balanced budget sees savings of £8.76m through the Proud Programme in 2020/21.

“The council is now changing the way it works, the way it responds to the customers we represent.

“This budget has been reduced over the years by £180 million by Government funding being reduced. What it has done, is allowed us to concentrate our mind as to how we can make more with less.

“We are forced into looking at ways into how this council works. We are facilitators, we are not providers. We deliver 1,360 different services per day, That will change.

“The investment we made with the PP, for every £1 we invest we will see £3 in return. That is ongoing year on year.”

He added the budget will see major investment in capital programmes such as £22 million for highways improvements, £30.4 million for school improvements over the next three years and £12.5 million to support older people in their homes.

But Labour group leader Aftab Nawaz said: “It has been sold to us that it is going to be transformative way of doing council business. But we have no doubt it is about cutting services.

“The budget that has come forward doesn’t really give us the details of which cuts are going to happen, even though we’ve asked questions.

“We’re very sceptical. I’m calling this the Houdini budget because within it, there are things hidden we are not being told about and when that pops out its going to impact on the people of Walsall.

“A level of detail would have aided the democratic process and we could have put alternatives forward and allow the people to choose which administration they want.

“The cuts are hidden. We think they know where the cuts are but won’t tell us. We are being asked to trust the Conservatives which to us is a contradiction in terms.

“We have been asked to support a PWC budget which will only benefit the profit margins of PWC. We don’t feel it will have a dramatic impact to help the people of Walsall.”

Liberal democrat leader Ian Shires added: “No matter how you care to dress this up, austerity remains well and truly alive in the real world outside of Westminster and in Local Government in particular.

“Over the next three years you are planning to take £71 million out of the Council’s budget. A cut of this size cannot happen without affecting front – line services. This will inevitably adversely affect the less well-off across the borough.

“There was a time when members of the opposition could come up with an amended balanced budget. We could do this because you could see where the savings would be coming from.

“With the Proud Programme ongoing you can’t do that. The £71 million this Council needs to save over the next three years in order to balance the books is hidden from view.

But Councillor Bird retorted: “Houdini budget? Yes, I agree. Houdini got rid of chains and handcuffs which is where this council has been for many many years.

“You are saying this is a PWC budget. Yes, it is. People Who Care – PWC. People who care about their residents and the services they deliver.”