<p>As the Christmas season approaches, our thoughts here at the Council turn to next year’s budget and council tax.</p> <p>As you all know more than 50% of our revenue budget, the money we spend on key everyday services such as caring for the elderly, looking after children and taking care of the environment, comes from the Government and in the last three years this funding has been cut by almost £29m.</p> <p>By the end of 2015/16 this cut will have reached nearly £50m.&nbsp; At the same time, we have had to meet other funding pressures such as the growing cost of caring for vulnerable members of our community and inflation.<br />By the end of 2015/16 we will have had to save nearly £75 million, equivalent to over £1,000 per household here in Telford and Wrekin, while we have now already had to shed over 1,000 posts from the Council, a figure that sadly will only continue to rise.</p> <p>It goes without saying that running a local council and providing all the essential services for our residents is getting tougher by the year.</p> <p>In the last year two years, the Government said to us that if we froze council tax, it would give us a short-term grant.</p> <p>As these were only for a limited time, it meant leaving us with an even bigger savings hole to find in future. So after a wide consultation with the public, we decided to reject the offer.&nbsp; Now it appears that Government has changed its mind and decided that the freeze grant from now will be built into budgets.</p> <p>So for the next two years, assuming that government would do the same and build the freeze grant into our budget, I am recommending to the Council that we freeze our council tax, which is already among the lowest in the region.</p> <p>Yes it would mean we have to find more savings to do this, but I believe we can do this thanks to our business winning approach which is attracting more business to the borough and more income through business rates.<br />I believe that as residents here continue to face pay freezes and struggle with the ever rising cost of living , particularly with recent hikes in energy bills and food costs, we must do everything we can to help ease the financial burden on our residents.</p>
