MORE than £15 million will be spent on services for Rother residents after councillors agreed a budget for 2024/25.
Despite years of funding cuts, soaring costs, and greater demand for services, Rother District Council will be able to balance its books by using some of its limited reserves, identifying efficiency savings and maximising income from investments, fees and charges.
Residents will also be asked to pay an additional 2.99 per cent on their council tax – the equivalent to an extra £5.94 a year for a Band D property.
Cllr Doug Oliver, council leader, said: “A great deal of work has taken place over the past few months to ensure the district council is in the strongest possible position, and I am grateful to officers and councillors who have worked tirelessly to make every penny count.
“Having faced years of financial pressures, we are left with limited options for saving money. Using reserves, finding efficiency savings and increasing fees and charges only take us so far, and we are reluctantly asking residents to pay a little more in their council tax.
He added: “Asking people to pay more is not a decision we have taken lightly, but our spending on homelessness and temporary accommodation alone has more than tripled over the last four years and those significant increase are being reflected across many of our services.”
Officers will be working on proposals to share further services to help reduce costs, whilst also investigating how the council’s digital transformation programme can help make the organisation more efficient.
Cllr Oliver added: “Whilst it’s good that we have been able to use reserves this year to safeguard services, it doesn’t give us any security for the future as we can only spend that money once. This means there is no guarantee that the money we spend on services this year will be available to us the following year, making it extremely difficult to make any long-term plans for the services our residents rely upon.”
Full reports and a webcast of the meeting can be found at https://rother.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=137&MId=821
Published: 27th February 2024
