Around about now, millions of households across England are receiving their 2023/24 council tax bill and being confronted with the impact in pounds and pence of a 5% typical increase.
Whereas other bills like water and energy at least link directly to our consumption, more households than usual may be left thinking: ‘What do I actually get for this?'
In Swindon, we wanted to help residents follow the money – and posted a hard-to-miss booklet to 88,000 households with their council tax bill. Even if residents do no more than glance at the booklet's front cover before putting it in their recycling box, the front cover spells it out: ‘Want to know where your council tax goes? 80% funds vital social care services for adults and children in Swindon.'
If residents read no further, that's the headline we want them to take away. The reality that the lion's share of the council's budget is spent on social care which directly benefits a relatively small proportion of Swindon's 230,000 population.
We wanted to put a pin in the enduring, but long out-dated perception, that providing universal council services is still where most of the money goes. Making it clear it's not the NHS and our national insurance contributions that pick up the tab for adult social care.
The booklet doesn't beat around the bush in giving bill payers examples of the eye-watering costs involved. In Swindon, providing care for one adult costs on average £24,365 a year and £81,300 is the average cost of a child care placement.
Beyond the cold, hard numbers, the booklet shares examples of how this money is put to work in practice to help people. Paying the £450 per week cost, for example, of a respite break for a young adult with a learning disability. Funding the £1,500 cost of 30 play therapy sessions that help a child to improve their school attendance and attainment.
A back cover graphic lays bare where every £1,000 of residents' council tax goes. A total of £797 on adult, children, families and community health services compared to £108 on waste and recycling collections, country parks and tree maintenance.
Understandably, residents often don't appreciate the nuances of local government finance. They ask, for example, ‘why don't you use that £25m planned for a major road upgrade to sort out the pot holes instead?'. Separate from the council's day-to-day budget, the booklet explains how millions of pounds in additional ring fenced funding from the Government is put to work.
And what about the other 20% of the council's budget? The aim was to help residents appreciate the many bread and butter services still funded from their council tax. Like gritting, food hygiene inspections, school place allocations, wedding and civil partnership ceremonies, not to mention around 10 million waste and recycling collections every year.
Emptying the bins will always top the Family Fortunes scoreboard as the main discernible service most residents get from their council. Many may go through life largely oblivious to how the council deploys the thousands of pounds they fork out in council tax.
Unless we take the opportunity to tell them, there's the risk the council is seen as increasingly irrelevant by a majority of residents who don't personally benefit from social care services or even appreciate that's the main business we're in today.
With the current cost of living pressures facing residents, why didn't we just give them a bill and run for cover? That would have passed up the chance to piggy back on the bill postage costs and the opportunity to explain the story behind the numbers at the same time.
Ultimately, councils have a legal duty to make ends meet. So why not make it a duty to show our workings out with residents? The booklet is available here: www.swindon.gov.uk/annualreport
Phil Avery, Head of Policy, Campaigns and Communications at Swindon Council
